ON MINES AND MINERS IN KINTA, PERAK. 
uae 
ax Aye HE valley of the Kinta is, and has been for a very 
7G long time essentially a mining country. There are 
a — in the district nearly five ondeed registered mines, 
; ee of which three are worked by European Companies, 
“= the rest being either private mines, i.e., mines, 
claimed by Malays, which have been worked by 
them and their ancestors for an indefinite period, 
or new mines, in other words new concessions given indifferently 
on application to Malays and Chinese. There are about three 
hundred and fifty private Malay mines, and it is with these 
principally that the following paper will deal. 
So far, no lodes have been discovered in Kinta; it is, how- 
ever, probable that, as the country is opened up and prospec- 
tors get up amongst the spurs of the main range, the sources 
of the stream tin will come to light. 
Mining in Kinta, like mining in Lirut, is for stream tin, 
and this is found hterally eve ery whet ‘ein Kinta ; it is washed 
out of the sand in the river beds—a very fay ourite employment 
with Mandheling women; Kinta natives do not affect it much, 
although there is more than one stream where a good worker 
can earn a dollar per day ; it is mined for in the valley, and 
sluiced for on the sides of hilis ; and lastly, a very suggestive 
fact to a geologist, it has been found on the tops of isolated 
limestone bluffs and in the caves * which some of them con- 
tain. 
This stream tin has probably been worked for several cen- 
turies in Kinta; local tradition says that a very long time ago 
Siamese were the principal miners and there is evidence that 
* Report on the geology and physical geography of the State 
of Pérak, by Revd. J.. E. Tennison- Woop, F.G.8., F.L.8., &e. 
