38 HATCH : THE KOLAR GOLD-FIELD. 



with band and circular saws and patent wood-boring machines for 

 boring out mill-guides. 



The skilled labour in the shops is entirely native and is most 

 efficient, the native of Southern India being specially adept at such 

 work as this, which requires considerable manual dexterity but no 

 great muscular exertion. 



Electric plant. — A few of the mines have the engine and boiler 

 houses, as well as the mill, cyanide-works, shaft-tops and officers' 

 quarters, lighted by electric light. At the Champion Reef Mine the 

 electric power is supplied by a pair of 4-poled "S" type, shunt- 

 wound dynamos making 500 revolutions per minute, and providing 

 a current of 440 volts 120 amperes. This is run by two vertical 70 

 horse-power compound engines of the Mirless, Watson and Yarren 

 type, with cylinders n|and 16 inches diameter and an 8-inch stroke. 

 The installation is on' the 3-wire system and is worked with an 

 equalizer, reducing the current to 220 volts. 



THE HANDLING OF THE ORE AT THE SURFACE. 



The stone delivered at the shaft-head is either waste rock or ore. 

 The former is trammed to and tipped on the waste-heaps. The latter 

 is handled variously according to the arrangements of each indivi- 

 dual mine. It may be trammed direct to the mill, or tipped over a 

 screen at the shaft-head, the fines going to the mill and the coarse 

 stuff to the sorting floors, or, if hoisted during the night, it may be 

 taken temporarily to storage-bins, whence it is conveyed in the 

 morning to the sortinsr floors. 



It is obvious that the less the ore is handled on its way from the 

 shaft-head to the mill bins, the greater will be the economy of its 

 treatment. However cheap native labour may be, each transfer of 

 ore from truck to ore-bin and vice versa, must add something to the 

 cost per ton. Labour-saving appliances such as self-dumping skips, 



