1841.] On the Mineral resources, fyc. of Northern Afghanistan. 79 



Thirdly, it is evident, from the extent of the excavations of Koh i Aeenuk, Seestungee, and 

 Moosye, as well as the quantity of slag still remaining at the former place, that the people who 

 worked these mines, must, in following the ore to a considerable depth, have found it increasing, or 

 at any rate not diminishing in quantity. 



Lastly, we may reasonably infer, that these people, by confining their operations to so few loca- 

 lities, found the work sufficiently plentiful and lucrative to give them employment, without being 

 under the necessity of opening new ground, and this will account for so much being left untouched. 

 The mines also must have been abandoned in consequence of some political convulsion or foreign 

 invasion. 



Facilities for working the Mines. 



Of the means of drainage, I may say, that in general there is no want of declivity of 



„ „ . ground for obtaining adits — the term adit is a technical one in 



Me ans of Drainage. D 



mining, used to denote a gallery or passage which acts at the 



same time as a drain. In an economical point of view, this is of great importance, as 

 the system of working by a succession of galleries above the adit-level in some mines, 

 or having to go but a short distance under it in others, is attended with much less 

 outlay than when the reverse is the case, and mechanical power must be had recourse 

 to, for raising the water from a considerable depth to the drain. In the Gwennap 

 mines in Cornwall, for instance, where the deepest shaft is about 1700 feet below the 

 surface, there are no less than seventeen steam engines, some of which are of enormous 

 size, and these, with a water wheel 42 feet in diameter, are employed night and day 

 in pumping the water, and raising ore and rubbish from the mines. In the Moosye 

 ridge, the principal mines are situated about the summit of the mountain ; at Koh i 

 Aeenuk again, which is but a small hill in comparison, there appears to be abundance 

 of room for bringing in an adit under all the old workings, but at Seestungee, this 

 would not be managed so easily. The whole of this metalliferous tract, however, is so 

 much more elevated and mountainous than the mineral ground of Cornwall, that the 

 unwatering of the mines could be effected with greater facility, and at much less 

 expence. 

 Small streams for washing, cleaning the ore, &c. are often wanting in these mountains, 

 but this defect may be remedied wherever springs may be 

 observable, by piercing the slopes with Jcarezes, and obtaining 

 the necessary quantity of water. At Derbund, there is a small 

 stream which passes close by the veins of purple ore I have described. The river of 

 Sogur pursues its course along the base of the range at Moosye, where the mines are 

 situated; the rivulets of Dobundee, Tezeen, Chuckeree, &c. at all seasons of the year 

 have a sufficient supply for moving machinery, whilst mountain torrents, such as those 

 of Esourtungee and Jerobaee, possess I think sufficient water, considering the great- 

 ness of their fall, for turning stamping mills, and crushing apparatus of that descrip- 

 tion. 



The pine forests which stretch from the Sufued Koh to the Southward, will afford 



a permanent supply of wood for timbering the mines, and charcoal 

 Supply of Timber. v ** J 6 . ... ,. 



for the smelting furnaces. The same carriage which would convey 



the ore to the fuel, would bring back timber for the mines. The furnaces best adapted 



for this country, are not the reverberatory ones of Swansea, where coal is the fuel, but 



