132 Notices of Memoirs — Gold Fields of Wainad. 



angular flints and broken flints. Sucli a deposit was evidently 

 formed by a stream due to melting of the debris-laden ice, and its 

 chalky constituents have been preserved owing to the protection 

 afforded by the Boulder-clay, for as a rule the Glacial gravels are 

 decalcified. 



It is from beds of this nature in the Boulder-clay that supplies 

 of water are sometimes met with by well-sinkers. 



The cutting extended about 15 chains, and in its highest part was 

 about 25 feet above the rails. 



ZsTOTIClES OIF" 3VCE2!/nOII?.R- 



I. — The Gold Fields of Wainad, in Southern India. By 

 H. H. Hatden, B.A., F.G.S., and F. H. Hatch, Ph.D., F.G.S. 

 Memoirs of the Geological Survey of India. 8vo ; vol. xxxiii, 

 pp. 48, with seven plates. (Calcutta, 1901.) 



THE Geological Survey of India have issued a memoir dealing 

 with the goldfields of Wainad in the Malabar District. Mining 

 operations having been recently abandoned as unproductive, and 

 reports by previous experts on their value being conflicting, a more 

 exhaustive mineral survey than any hitherto undertaken was made 

 by Mr. H. H. Hayden and Dr. F. H. Hatch, the services of the 

 latter as a mining specialist being temporarily secured by the Indian 

 Government. Typical reefs having been selected, their systematic 

 examination was proceeded with, and numerous specimens obtained 

 at fixed intervals were analyzed at Calcutta. The results of the 

 analyses, averaging about 2 dwt. of gold to the ton, are disappointing, 

 and corroborate the opinion formed on the ground that the grade of 

 ore is too low to j ustify the further exploitation of the district. The 

 region furnishes a striking example of the unreliability of old native 

 workings as a safe criterion of the existence of payable metal. 

 With the employment of forced labour along surface outcrops and 

 the use of primitive machinery the cost of production is necessarily 

 reduced to a minimum, and the popular idea that the crude methods 

 of the ancients necessitated the presence of high-grade ore is 

 a fallacy that should be taken to heart by investors in other parts 

 of the world at present under exploitation. J. B. H. 



II. — Pebim Island and its Relations to the Area of the 

 Red Sea. By Catherine A. Raisin, D.Sc/ 



THIS paper describes briefly rock specimens from Perim Island 

 collected and placed at the disposal of the authoress hy Captain 

 J. A. Rupert Jones, now stationed at Aden. 



The island, as shown in the Admiralty chart, has somewhat of 

 a horseshoe shape, enclosing a harbour opening to the south. Low 

 plains, less than 12 feet above sea-level, extend in from the coast, 

 especially at the north, and consist of raised beaches, but most' of 

 the southern and eastern parts are hilly, reaching 249 feet at the 

 highest point. 



1 Eead before the British Association, Section C (Geology), Glasgow, Sept., 1901. 



