Vol. 65.] LAHAT ' PIPE ' IN PERAK. 383 



crystalline, without any trace of fossils. Its colour is often pure white, 

 affording good material for ornamental work. Sometimes, however, 

 it is composed of white-and-black bands which probably preserve 

 the bedding of pure and impure limestones. A specimen from one 

 of the black bands examined lately proved to be composed of calcite, 

 carbon, lepidolite in minute flakes, and tremolite. There is good 

 reason for supposing that these white-and-black crystalline lime- 

 stones are of the same age as less altered light-and-dark (carbon- 

 aceous) limestones on the other side of the peninsula, in Pahang. 

 This makes it permissible to regard them as being equivalent to 

 some part of the Productus-Beds of the Salt Eange in India. The 

 granite that has given rise to the stanniferous deposits was intruded 

 at a much later date, probably in Jurassic, or perhaps in Cretaceous 

 times. 



In 1903, the Societe des Etains de Kinta found at the bottom of 

 a small pit where detrital ore had been worked a mass of stone 

 in situ, deep indian-red in colour, oval in shape, measuring about 

 7 feet by 2, and carrying a considerable amount of cassiterite. 

 The country was crystalline limestone. The stone was followed 

 and found to continue in depth, while the mass increased in size. 

 The work proved highly lucrative, and regular mining operations 

 were commenced, leading to the installation of an efficient elec- 

 trically-driven plant. There was no serious cessation in the opera- 

 tions until 1908, when the mine had reached 314 feet, and the fall 

 in the price of tin made it advisable to call a halt in underground 

 work, and confine expenditure to crushing accumulated stone on the 

 surface. 



At this time (that is, in June 1908) the Societe presented me 

 with a beautiful wire model of the mine, showing the limit of 

 working and the limit of the ore-bearing stone. Two sections 

 have been sketched from this model, which is now in the Selangor 

 Museum, Kuala Lumpur, and are reproduced in figs. 1 & 2 (pp. 384 

 & 385). Neither section is drawn strictly in one vertical plane, but 

 a comparison of the two will give some idea of the form of the 

 deposit, and of the mass of tin-ore that has been won by following 

 down a small outcrop. 



Statistics of output, kindly supplied by M. E. Legros, are as 

 follows : — 



Stone crushed since operations commenced until the 



end of 1907 30,000 cubic yards. 



Dressed ore won 20,000 pikuls. 



The weight of one cubic yard of calcite (the matrix of this stone) 

 being taken as 2 long tons, and a pikul being 133-3 lbs., this is 

 ■equivalent to 1*98 per cent, by weight. 1 



1 The percentage is really higher, since this estimate is based on the weight 

 of a cubic yard of unbroken calcite, whereas the cubic yardage was reckoned 

 on broken ground. 



