150 OOGGIN BROWN : MINES & MINERAL RESOURCES OF YUNNAN. 



0-25 metres long. The hands perform the work of a shovel in 

 gathering up the debris into a basket which a. child carries out 

 and empties. 



" The most spacious workings which we saw did not measure 

 more than 1 metre in height by 0-f>0 to 0-70 metres in breadth ; 

 very often when the rock is hard, or in a narrow place, the 

 opening is only sufficient to allow the miner to pass. But apart 

 from their narrowness the workings are generally well made and 

 safe ; the timbering is solid, joined together with split branches 

 of pine which prevent falls from the roof or walls. 



" Search for gold is not confined to the place we have just indi- 

 cated. Descending from tin 1 mountain there are several torrents 

 in which stone barricades retain the sands; these are washed and 

 treated by the process already indicated. 



tc The inhabitants of the villages on the banks of the torrents 

 descending from the mines adopt this method of work particularly ; 

 if it is not as lucrative as mining the ore deposits, it has the immense 

 advantage of using up spaxe time, when the whole population 

 is not absorbed in agricultural pursuits. 



" 400 or 500 men are actually employed at the mines, which are 

 said to produce f>0 or 60 taels of gold per month, which would be 

 about 2 kilograms or 6,000 francs ; it is safe to say that the work 

 is irregular ; the war which has desolated the province since 1855, 

 has caused the miners and the numerous population grouped around 

 the mines to disappear ; the villages are abandoned and the houses 

 overgrown by bushes. At an earlier period the revenue of the 

 mines would have been about 1.000 taels per month, or more than 

 1,300,000 francs per annum. Nuggets are frequently found." 

 (G. IL pp. 162-163). 



According to Rocher (R., p. 247). deposits from which gold is 

 Roch 1880} recovered are numerous in Yunnan ; many were 



ruined by the rebellion, and only a few were 

 working when he wrote. The treatment differs in nearly every 

 mine ; at T'a-lang a washing process is used ; in the K'ai-hua 

 prefecture, where veins occur in a very hard quartzitic rock, various 

 washing operations have also given results. At Yung-pei, ground 

 rich in gold is treated by amalgamation with mercury. A great 

 number of streams carry gold, but not enough to warrant conti- 

 nuous work ; nevertheless the people who live along the river banks, 

 often wash the sands, with profitable results, during the dry season. 



