78 HOLLAND : MICA DEPOSITS OF INDIA. 



VI.— MINING PRACTICE. 



(i) Underground and quarry work. 



Two systems of mica-mining have been followed in India : in Nellore 

 the mineral is raised in open quarries the slope of whose sides is deter- 

 mined by the angle of repose of the surrounding schists ; in Bengal 

 the mica is followed from crystal to crystal along tortuous, worm-like 

 holes. The former practice is capable of improvement; the latter can 

 best be improved by its abolition and the adoption of the rational 

 methods employed elsewhere for mining ordinary lodes of known 

 thickness, strike and hade. I am aware that the experience of the 

 older workers in Bengal teaches them to favour the old native methods 

 which have been followed for centuries. Till recent years, with an 

 abundance of pegmatite-veins exposed, and with little competition, the 

 old method may have been good enough. But it must be remembered 

 that the practice of the past has been merely a process of " picking 

 the eyes out " of the country, a practice satisfactory enough when the 

 supplies of the mineral are more than sufficient to meet the demand, 

 and when very little capital is available for more systematic operations. 

 But now most of the promising pegmatites have been picked near the 

 surface, and there is greater competition for the few mines available, 

 it is by no means too early to regulate the extravagant and casual 

 way in which the work is generally performed. However, these 

 matters can best be discussed when the mining methods now 

 practised are described, and we will commence first with Bengal, 

 where mining has been carried on for so many years. 



Bengal.— -Capt. W. S. Sherwill gave the subjoined account of 

 the method of mica mining followed by the natives in 1857 : — 



" A small and convenient hill having been chosen as the spot for commencing 

 operations upon, a party of the wild hill tribes, named Bandathis, the members of 

 which party have freely propitiated the local tutelary god or goddess, both by 

 sacrifice and by getting very drunk, ascend to the top of the hill and commence 

 sinking a series of pits, the whole way down the profile of the hill, about lliree feet 

 jn diameter each, and a few feet aparf. These pits are not continued vertically 



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