154 COGGIN BROWN : MINES & M1NKHAI. RESOURCES OF YUNNAN. 



lode varying from 10 feet to 50 and 100 feet. The richer ore- 

 shoots average 12 or 14 dwt. of gold per ton, and carry consider- 

 able silver, copper, and lead, and the lode from end to end averages 6 

 dwt. The ore has only been worked for about 20 years, but alluvial 

 gold has been washed from time immemorial by sometimes as many 

 as 15,000 men at a time, both in the valley in which the mine is 

 situated, and in the sands and gravel bars of the Ya Lung river, 

 4,000 feet below the present workings. There are extensive native 

 workings on a lode that outcrops beyond the Maha mine on the 

 next mountain, but there the oxidation has not gone so far, and 

 most of the ore is too refractory for the primitive methods of the 

 Lolos, who throw the sulphides, chiefly pyrite, galena, and chalco- 

 pyrite, on the dump. The ore selected for crushing is carried by 

 hand over the summit of the ridge to the Ko Lo Lo creek 400 feet 

 below, where there are 80 stamps worked by 40 overshot water- 

 wheels. Each stamp weighs about 40 lbs. and crushes 60 lbs. of 

 ore daily in a stone mortar. About 50 per cent, of the gold con- 

 tent of the ore is saved by means of quicksilver, which is obtained 

 from a cinnabar mine situated at Hang Cho to the south of Kwa 

 Pit. The amalgam is taken to the mining Bureau at Shaa Ba, 

 where the miners are paid half its value, as they work on a 50 per 

 cent, royalty. The workings are quite free from water, and as 

 the lode dips with the slope of the mountain, the mine can be worked 

 by adits to a great depth. A new cross-cut tunnel has recently 

 been started, which should cut the vein 260 feet from its entrance. 

 The workings on the Maha mine extend for 550 feet alonff the 

 strike of the vein, and to a depth of 400 feet on its dip which is 35° 

 from the vertical. The new adit should open up a large body 

 of ore, and is expected to give at least 1,400 feet of backs below 

 the outcrop.'' (Miniruj Magazine, July 1916, p. 22.) Other records 

 in the same paper show a long list of known mineral occurrences 

 including gold. It is only 40 or 50 miles as the crow flies from 

 Maha to Ku-lu and a much shorter distance to the borders of Huang 

 La-ma Tifang — the land of the Yellow Lama — as the Chinese 

 call the kingdom of Mi-li. There are strong grounds for believing 

 that the geological structure is much the same across the whole 

 region and the fact that the Western portion of it is inhabited by 

 a more or less independent race unfriendly to the Chinese, may 

 well have prevented its mineral resources from becoming better 

 known. 



