854 Notes on the Iron of the Kasia Hills. [No. 129. 



excavation. The excavators standing on one side of their work, poke 

 out the soil from between the boulders with long 

 poles terminating in iron spikes. The loosened 



soil tumbles into the stream, and is carried by it violently down a narrow 



channel to a point 200 yards distant, and about 



See ditto D. D. ^^ feet perpendicu i ar i y below. Here a little 



post is fixed at each side of the stream, and against the upper side 

 of these posts, little bits of stick are laid, so as to form a kind of 

 dam, which stops the heavy particles of iron, whilst the lighter grains 

 of soil are carried off by the rapid stream bounding over the obstacle. 

 As the iron accumulates, sticks are added to heighten the dam, and 

 when this is nearly as high as the bank, (about one foot), the ore, a fine 

 black sand is taken out, the dam lowered, and the process repeated. 

 Above the dam a man is constantly employed in 

 turning up the channel of the stream with a hoe, 

 to prevent the ore from sticking in the passage, and with a long hook- 

 ed fork (F), he occasionally takes out any pieces of stone brought 

 down by the current. 



The ore is now removed to the washing trough, which is supplied 

 with water by a small branch of the upper stream. 

 The washing is performed by two women, work- 

 ing the ore against the stream with their feet, and occasionally turning 

 and mixing it with a hoe. It is then put in a heap to dry, and washed 

 again. This washing I was told is repeated four times. 



The ore is then carried to the smelting house. The charcoal used 

 (at Nongkrem) is of all sorts. The best is said to be that made from 

 a small species of oak common near the Boga Pani, and from a tree 

 called by the Kasias dingsai, bearing an acorn, but the leaves of which 

 do not resemble the oak. The fir is used, because it grows at the 

 door, but it is not approved of. 



The bellows are double ; formed of two-half cylinders of cowskin, 

 and worked by a man or woman, with a leg on each swaying from 

 foot to foot. Sometimes this employs two, as in the sketch, where 

 the good man and his wife are at work. The furnace is about twenty 

 inches in diameter ; and the chimney about five feet high, made of clay 

 bound with iron hoops. In the village of Sorra Rim, the chimneys 



