Extracts from a letter to Government on the above subject, from Dr. 

 M'Clelland, Secretary to the Coal Committee. 



In reply I have the honor, under instructions of the Coal and Mineral 

 Committee, to say, that the specimens of peroxide of tin received from 

 the Tenasserim Provinces, are the usual ore of tin which is worked with 

 much advantage in the Dutch possessions in the Straits, and in the 

 lower parts of the Malay Peninsula, south of the British boundary ; but 

 it has not hitherto been supposed to be sufficiently abundant on the 

 Coast, to be profitably worked beyond the tenth degree of north 

 latitude. 



The importance of this ore depends entirely upon the quantity in 

 which it occurs, the most profitable repositories are those in which it is 

 found in the form of crystals, in soft gneiss. It is often, however, pro- 

 fitably obtained from the sands of rivers, when it is called stream- tin ore. 



The tin occurs as stream ore in all the localities described by Captain 

 Tremenheere, except Kahun, a hill on the right bank of the great Tenas- 

 serim, about 11 miles from Mergui, vide paragraphs 16 and 17 of 

 Captain Tremenheere' s Report. Here Captain Tremenheere found the 

 ore in its native repository, a friable gneiss rock, similar to that in which 

 it occurs at Banca. 



The Committee are of opinion, that the circumstances brought for- 

 ward by Captain Tremenheere in the 1 6th and 1 7th paragraphs of his 

 Report, are such as to render it desirable, that the miner recently em- 

 ployed in Kemaoon, under Captain Drummond, should, if now available, 

 be placed under the orders of Captain Tremenheere, for the purpose of 

 ascertaining the value of the ore at Kahun.* 



* The miner (Mr. Wilkin) has, I am sorry to learn, preferred returning with the 

 fruits of his experience in Kemaoon to England to accepting this offer. — Ed. 



