176 



Account of the Gold Mmes 



[No. 



140 ounces troy ! Amidst these conflicting statements, a calculation 

 founded on data already admitted, offers the only means of forming 

 even a guess at the actual annual produce. Assuming therefore 

 1,000 persons to be the number employed in working the mines 

 throughout the whole Zillah, the average produce of each man's 

 labour a day to be ^ of a gold fanam's weight, and the average time 

 each man works to be exactly half the year, the total produce will 

 amount to nearly 61,000 gold fanams weight, or 750 ounces, which 

 at the rate of 35 Rupees an ounce will be worth Madras Rupees 26,250 

 per annum. From various circumstances brought to the notice of 

 the Committee, and more particularly from the facts which will be 

 adduced in the next paragraph, this is probably far above the reality, 

 but even considering it to be near the truth, it is but an insignificant 

 quantity when disffused throughout so large a population as that of 

 Malabar^ or when it is compared with the total produce of the globe 

 which is reckoned at a million and a quarter of ounces. 



8. " The condition of those connected with the mines in the ab- 

 sence of more direct evidence, will also enable us to form some opi- 

 nion of their productiveness. Little stress can be laid on the con- 

 dition of the miners themselves. The accounts of all travellers in 

 America agree in stating the portion of the population employed in 

 the search for gold, to be invariably the poorest and most miserable. 

 In this country, as has been already stated, mining is not pursued 

 as an exclusive occupation : the time not occupied in agriculture 

 is given up to it by a portion of the inhabitants. But these are 

 not in more comfortable circumstances than their neighbours, so 

 far as can be known from the state of their houses, their dress 

 or ornaments. They seem to be enabled merely to purchase a 

 larger portion of Tobacco, Salt and Betel, which to them are ac- 

 tual necessaries of life. Not an instance is known of a person 

 becoming rich by mining. The Tiroopaad or petty Rajah of 

 Nelamhoor who has a large extent of country, his own property, and 

 who pays a tax to Government for the privilege of mining, is said to 

 have acquired a considerable portion of his wealth by the gold produc- 

 ed on his estate. Every grain found is so much gain to him as he 

 exclusively employs his slaves, whom he is obliged to feed at any 

 rate, in the search, and from all accounts he is a hard task-master. 

 His case therefore cannot be considered a fair exception to the above 

 statement of the general poverty of those connected with the mines. 

 Nor can this be owing to the want of industry on the part of the 



