VEIN M1NKBALS. 2 J9 



metal remains. Such occurrences are known at Kanbauk. where they 

 are large enough to be of commercial importance, at Zinba. Putletto, 

 Kalonta and other mines. 



Native bismuth can be cut with a knife and is easily melted 

 below a red heat. 



Gold is found in small quantities as small flakes and grains in 



most of the tin-bearing alluvials of the district. 



The metal is of course known from many 

 tungsten bearing veins in other parts of the world, especially in 

 the United States of America, though there it occurs more usually 

 with scheelite than with wolfram. It cannot be asserted definitely 

 that the Tavoyan gold is derived from the wolfram bearing veins, 

 as up to the present time it has not been reported from them. 

 Indeed the occurrence of gold in the thin quartz veins of Saba 

 Taung near Tavoy town, seems rather to point to a separate deriva- 

 tion as these veins contain neither wolfram nor cassiterite as far 

 as is known. 



Sulphides and arsenides. 



The sulphide of molybdenum, MoS 2 , is found in granites which 



have undergone alteration in the vicinity of 



Molybdenite. . ° , . . . . J . , 



veins, in pegmatites, in greisens, m veins with 

 wolfram or cassiterite, or both, and in veins in which it occurs 

 alone with pyrite. It is a lustrous, lead grey, metallic-looking 

 mineral usually occurring in small scales which can be split into thin 

 leaves with the finger nail. Sometimes large piece- are found 

 in short hexagonal pr'sms. In mixed veins it generally occurs 

 close 'o the walls and is often intergrown with the mica which is 

 almost always found in such positions. It is commoner in veins 

 traversing granite than in those piercing sedimentary rocks. At 

 Sonsin mine at the north end of the Mintha granite massif, there 

 are veins which carry molybdenite without wolfram or cassiterite. 

 The mineral tends to segregate at the walls and in the greisen 

 adjoining them. Other localities where it is especially abundant 

 are at the Burma Malaya Co.'s Wagon North mine, in certain lodes 

 at Kadan Taung near Thingandon and at the Widnes mine of the 

 High Speed Steel Alloys Mining Co. Ltd. Small parcels have been 

 extracted from Sonsin and Wagon North but owing to primitive 

 methods of mining and the impossibility of concentrating the crushed 

 ore in the ordinary washing pan or sluice box, it is of little 

 economic importance at present. 



