COPPER. 81 



newest galleries was considerably greater than in any of the deserted 

 mines, but several galleries and trial drifts had been abandoned. Accord- 

 ing to Bisman, the lessee, the average yield of copper from the picked 

 ore is about 3| to 4| per cent. This is equal to poor Cornish picked ore. 



The Rattu mine in Independent Sikkim is, as I have said, the 

 best I have seen, the picked ore there containing 8 or 9 per cent, of 

 copper, which is slightly above the average yield of Cornish ore. 



The exposure of the outcrops did not lead me to suppose that the 

 Sampthar and Baxa seams would turn out above the average of those 

 elsewhere. 



It appears then that the best seams are fairly productive, while the 

 working of others does not seem to have much more than covered^ 

 expenses, and some have resulted in a loss. The miners have not a 

 thriving look about them, and the number of deserted mines is in itself 

 suggestive that copper smelting in the Darjiling hills is not a very 

 lucrative employment. 



The prospect cannot be considered very encouraging towards any 

 attempt to work these mines systematically. No 



Conditions not en- . . . 



couraging to European doubt the native miners make a living out of them, 

 barbarous as their way of mining is. The chief 

 disadvantages of that system, however, lie in the injury to the seam and 

 the wastefulness by which the greater part of it is left behind in the 

 mine, while the latter can only be carried to a trifling depth from the 

 surface. The system is perhaps not greatly more expensive with regard 

 to what ore is obtained than a more civilized method of procedure, as 

 long as the mines are shallow. The miners may locate themselves at 

 some likely -looking spot and make a profit if they gain sufficient ore 

 to smelt a few mans of copper. If a venture does not turn out well, or 

 when a locality is beginning not to pay, they have merely to pack up 

 their skin bellows and a few tools and remove elsewhere, leaving behind 

 them the remains of their clay furnaces and a few huts made of 

 branches. 



L ( 81 ) 



