108 Scientific Proceedings, Royal Dublin Society. 



Speaking of Patanaw (Patna) on the Granges, below Banaras, it 

 is said : — " Here at Patanaw they find gold in this manner. They 

 digge deepe pits in the earth, and wash the earth in great boUes, 

 and therein they find the gold, and they make the pits round 

 about with brick, that the earth fall not in." I cannot but think 

 that there is a mistake here, due to an account of gold-washing in 

 the country to the south having been mixed up with a description 

 of the method of sinking ordinary irrigation-wells in the neigh- 

 bourhood of Patna. It is not likely that gold was ever found in 

 sufficient quantity in the Gangetic alluvium, near Patna, to repay 

 the cost of searching for it. 



Abdul Fazl. — Here we may turn aside again from European 

 authorities to an Oriental writer, who, being a Mahomedan like the 

 already quoted Ferishta, presents us with much more useful and 

 matter-of-fact statements than are to be found in any works hj 

 Hindus. Abdul Fazl, the author of the Ain-i-Akbari, written 

 in 1590, refers to the occurrence of and working for several mine- 

 rals, especially diamonds, gold, and iron. The diamond mines at 

 Beiragarh, in Grondwana, which he mentions as having been taken 

 possession of by the ruler of KuUem, or Chanda, were probably 

 the same as those already mentioned by Ferishta. In any case, it 

 is certain that Beiragarh may be identified with the naodern 

 Wairagarh in the Central Provinces, where traces of the mines are 

 still to be seen. 



Gold was obtained, he says, in certain streams in Kashmir by 

 pegging down, under water, the hairy skins of animals, which 

 served to arrest the auriferous dust in its descent with the current. 

 Long ago it was suggested that such skins were the origin of the 

 idea of the skins of the gold-digging ants, mentioned by Nearchos' 

 and others, but the explanation given on a previous page is the 

 more probable one. He alludes to the "steel" mines at Nirmal, 

 which can be identified with a locality in Hyderabad, where a 

 high quality of steel was prepared, most of which found its way to 

 Persia, for manufacture into the Damascus swords, to which refe- 

 rence has already been made. 



The enormous salt deposits of the Punjab are noticed by 

 Abdul Fazl; and here may be quoted a passage from Strabo,^ 

 which should have appeared on a previous page : — 



" It is said that in the territory of Sopeithes there is a moun- 



' B. XV., chap. i. s. 30. 



