Chap. XXITI.] 
rAROUK, 
469 
measured as stacked, and to do dead- work at a given rate per 1,000 cubic 
feet of cavity made in the quarry in the case of^'soft 'deads ', or per 1,000 
cubic feet of rock measured in tubs or stacks in case of hard 'deads'. If 
the number of coolies employed by the contractor is small he pays them 
directly at about the rates given in the foregoing table ; but if he is a large 
employer of labour he sublets his contract to a petty or gang contractor, 
to whom the contractor pays a smaller rate per 1,000 cubic feet of ore 
and dead- work. The petty contractor pays his gang — with whom he 
himself works as a common coolie, for he is no more — at rates approxi- 
mating to those given in the table above. 
Some classes of work it is of course either impossible or undesirable 
to let out to contractors. Amongst such work is that of carpenters, 
blacksmiths, and men in charge of the winding gear at mines where 
ropeways or gravity inclines are in use, men engaged in supervising tram- 
ming, and men engaged in drilling and blasting. Such men are said to be 
engaged departmentally and are paid by the mine manager either daily 
or monthly wages, according to the nature of the work on which they are 
engaged. For the commoner classes of departmental work the rates 
of pay are the same as given in table 44 ; but a considerable portion 
of the work being of a more skilled nature than the contract work, much 
higher wages than the above are often paid. 
The difficulty of obtaining an abundant supply of good mining labour 
is partly due to the fact that the ancient mining 
Absence of mining castes. ■ -, , ■ cttt i • n , 
mdustries oi India have so long smce decayed 
almost to the point of disappearance that there are very few people 
left whose caste work is mining. The consequence is that most of the 
coolies at present employed on the manganese mines have some other 
hereditary profession or trade, to which they like to revert at 
intervals. This particularly applies to the agriculturists, who have to 
absent themselves from the mines at certain times of the year so as to 
attend to the sowing and reaping of their crops. A further result of the 
coolies employed on the mines' not being hereditary miners is that 
they have no hereditary mining skill to bring to their work. Never- 
theless, it often happens that whole families belonging to non-mining 
castes work on the manganese mines. Some of the children spend 
nearly the whole of their time on the m'nes practically from birth, 
and hence will grow up looking upon mini g as their legitimate and proper 
occupation ; from these, therefore, we may expect the evolution of a sort 
of mining caste during the course of the next generation or two. 
