On the Occurrence and Distribution of Gold in India. 539 
which is communicated to the water in the hollow of the dish, by which 
even the smallest particles of foreign matter are separated, and the final 
result is a residue of black iron-sand in which the specks of gold are 
readily apparent. 
“The gold-washers belong to the lowest and poorest races in the 
country. Throughout Chutia-Nagpur the tribes who are engaged in 
this occupation may be classified as follows :— 
** First.—The Dohras, or Dokras, of Manbhtim, who are allied to the 
Kumars, and profess to be Hindus. Among them both sexes wash for 
gold. 
** Second.—The Ghasis of Singhbhum, among whom the men only 
wash for gold. The Ghasis are also musicians, and only certain families, 
or sub-tribes, engage in the former occupation. 
“ Third.—In the hilly country, west of Singhbhum, among certain of 
the Kol or Munda tribes, the women wash for gold during the rains ; 
but the men regard the occupation as unworthy work for their sex. 
“The methods employed by these different tribes appear to be identical 
in all essentials, and similar to the process just described. Each 
occupies a distinct tract, and poaching on each other’s favourite streams 
is not indulged in to any great extent. 
«Their numbers were greatly reduced by the famine of 1866 ; without 
exception they are all in the power of the Mahajuns, for whom they 
work at a low rate, and are never able to free themselves of the claims 
which the Mahajuns make on account of advances. 
“The daily earnings of the gold-washers are small, but might, no 
doubt, be increased, if it were not that they are always satisfied when 
enough gold has been found for procuring the day’s subsistence. 
“Colonel Haughton says:—‘The Gasis can always reckon on 
earning from three to four pice per day, and I am assured that a 
vigorous man oiten gets as much as twelve annas, which, as the ordinary 
rate of field labour is about one pice, must be considered a very large 
sum.’* Mr. Robinson found in a trial which he made at Rohobe, in 
Oodipur, that men to whom he paid one anna could produce for 
him from three to four annas worth of gold. Colonel Dalton states 
that the washers themselves regard it as a very poor trade, simply 
yielding they say, pét bur (bellyful). Dr. Stehr, in his paper on Singh- 
bhim, states that he found the average daily earning to be about 25 
centimes (rather more than an anna and a half). The men I met with 
stated that they could earn about an anna a day and occasionally three 
or four annas. 
“The simplest idea of the process of hydraulic mining, which seems 
so nearly to approach to perfection in California, is not altogether un- 
known to the natives. Mr. Robinson sayst :—‘ Another plan, and a 
very remarkable one, in which the people collect the gold, is by drawing 
up small watercourses before the rains, so as to make places for a deposit 
of soil carried down by the water ; this soil is cleared out several times 
and in it is found a large deposit of gold.’ 
“In the shallow diggings the hydraulic system would not, of course, 
* “Jour. Asiatic Soc.. Bengal,” 1854, p. 109. + I/id., p. 108. 
