160 On the Boksas of Bijnour. [No. 3; 
little in availing themselves of the natural products, which are literally 
scattered around them. 
But the most important and interesting of the extra-agricul- 
tural avocations the Boksas ever engage in, is gold-washing, and 
it deserves a somewhat more extended notice. Within the last 25 
or 830 years, the first part of the course of the Ganges, outside the 
Himalaya, furnished gold from its sands, but at present the Sona 
naddi in the Patli Doon, and the Ramgunga, below the junction of the 
former, are the only streams in this neighbourhood, whose sands are 
regularly or frequently washed. Little is done on the Ramgunga 
outside the Siwaliks, but there appeared every indication that the 
gold-washing was a regular employment of the Boksas on the Sona 
naddi, and there is reason to believe, that the proceeds derived 
from that minor Eldorado had a good deal to do with the 
manifest reluctance of these people to leave the Patli Doon, on the 
occasion of its being shut up for the preservation of the timber. In 
the aggregate, however, the amount annually collected does not seem 
to have been very large, for some years ago, the sum paid to Govern- 
ment by the contractor of the Doon as gold-dues was only 25 rupees 
yearly. 7 
The Boksas say that there is nothing in the appearance, of the 
gold-bearing sand to let them know if it will be productive or not, | 
and only “prospecting” by a trial will shew this. The sand itself is 
dug from the bed of the stream at many places extending over several 
miles, and the superficial layer generally contains much less gold than 
some of those a few inches below. In the sand, there seems to be a 
good deal of ferruginous matter, and there are iron-markings along 
many parts of the borders of the little stream, which here runs down 
an intra-Siwalik valley similar to, but very much smaller than the 
Dehra Doon. The soil, in and near the bed of the stream, is mostly — 
gravel, and soft gray sandstone, similar to that of the Siwaliks, 
frequently crops out. 
Three or four people, often members of one family, work in a gang, 
each having a separate part of the process assigned to him. A shovelful. 
of the sand is first put upon a little close-set bamboo screen or sieve, - 
placed over the upper hinder part of a flat toon-wood cradle (sand), 
the lower end of which is open, and which has handles by which its 

