528 Scientific Proceedings, Royal Dublin Society. 
solution. They are even when in solid quartz sometimes 70 feet 
deep, with smooth sides and quite plumb; what the tools were 
which enabled the miners to produce such work in hard, dense, 
quartz, no one appears to be able to suggest. The fragments of 
stone obtained from these various mines were pounded with hand 
mullers, the pounding places being still seen, and the pounded 
stone was then, it is believed, washed in a wooden dish and treated 
with mercury. 
The Korumbas or gold washers, who are admitted to be skilful, 
do not regard the gold as being derived from the reefs, though 
they generally select spots near the reefs for washing. Their 
earnings amount to from two to three annas (3d. to 43d.), a day, 
but it is possible that at an earlier period of the industry it 
may have been more profitable since Mr. Brough Smyth says that 
the present condition of the country is, that it is covered with 
‘tailings, and corresponds to that of an abandoned Australian 
washing. Still it is the case that :— 
‘On washing a few dishes of the surface soil anywhere a few streaks 
of very fine gold will be found. In the vicinity of the reefs rather 
heavy gold is got by sluicing; and if a suitable spot be selected the 
native miners will obtain, even by their methods, sufficient gold to re- 
munerate them for their labour.” 
I cannot quote here a tithe of the evidence which exists as to 
the former wealth of Southern India, but the following extract 
from a letter by Mr. E. B. Eastwick will be read with interest. 
Mr. Eastwick quotes from Dr. Burnell :-— 
‘Tt has always been a puzzle whence the great wealth came which 
enabled the Rajahs of Southern India to construct enormous works, 
which collectively must have cost millions. The marvel is increased by 
the fact that so far from these Indian princes having been impoverished 
by this expenditure, they were still possessed of vast treasures which 
fell into the hands of the Moslems in the fourteenth century, and were 
carried away to Delhi. The famous Tanjore Temple inscription speaks 
of a great abundance of gold which can only have arisen from mines. 
Dr. Burnell writes :—‘It proves that in the eleventh century gold was 
the most common precious metal in India. Silver is little mentioned, 
and it thus appears that the present state of things which is exactly the 
reverse, was only brought about by the Portugese in the sixteenth cen- 
tury. I submit that the great abundance of gold spoken of in the in- 
scription can have arisen only from mines, and that in the terrible con- 
vulsions caused by the irruption of Moslem invaders from the north, 
and Europeans from the west, the position of these gold fields was lost 
sight of.’”—Times, January 2nd, 1879. 
