Ball — On the Gold-hearing Rochs of Southern India. 37 



not picked ones, by which it is to be presumed that we are to 

 understand that they were not exclusively from the casing walls of 

 the reef or from the feeders. 



One report which I received from this locality was, however, 

 that the thin casing walls of the reefs and the feeders or leaders 

 from them, alone contained gold in paying quantities, the bulk of 

 the reefs not containing gold sufficient to pay the cost of extraction. 

 Similar observations have been made by Mr. King with reference 

 to some of the Wynand reefs. Where such is the case the matter 

 narrows itself into a purely mining question, whether in following 

 to the deep and extracting these casing walls the expense of deal- 

 ing with a comparatively large proportion of practically barren 

 rock will not exceed the produce from the paying portion. The 

 feeders, in the majority of cases, are probably of too limited 

 and capricious a distribution to admit of being mined to any 

 extent. 



It is, to the best of my belief, fully two years since some of 

 the engines and stamps were set up at Kolar, so that shareholders 

 cannot be accused of undue impatience if they now ask for re- 

 sults. 



Regarding the geological age of these gold-bearing rocks, it 

 seems probable that they belong to the lower transition or sub- 

 metamorphic series of India, the representatives of which, as I 

 showed in my previous Paper, are also auriferous in Bengal. 



In lithological characters, especially in the prevalence of chlo- 

 ritic schists, there is a very close resemblance. Invariably I found 

 in Bengal that chloritic schists, traversed by quartz reefs, were to 

 be found in the vicinity of those tracts where the auriferous sands 

 were richest. The coincidence was far too constant to have been 

 accidental. 



I cannot but believe that there are localities in India where 

 gold, in paying quantities, exists. A failure upon the part of 

 a number of the companies to produce profitable results would 

 not necessarily invalidate this opinion. Some have acquired pro- 

 perties which are, probably, worthless, while others have a heavy 

 burden of capital which may prove most detrimental to their pros- 

 perity ; but the most competent men who have examined the pro- 

 perties are unanimous in asserting that some of the mines are of 

 promise. 



