492 THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST , [Jax. ] 1900. 
races, who washed and dug for gold, obtaining about 
four annaa worth each per head a day. In other 
parts of India, as well as Mysore, there were always 
searchers after precious metals. In most of the 
streams on the western coast of India, gold is found 
associated with blacls magnetic iron sand. The iron 
sand is used in native iron furnaces, or as dust for 
spreading on written documents to dry the ink in- 
stead of using blocing paper. On the feaside, near 
Beypore and Calicut, there is always an accumula- 
tion of this precious black sand, and with it are 
particles of Gold. The chloride of sodium in the 
sea water decomv oses the impurities with which the 
gold is associated. In Queensland, Australia, on the 
sea coast, where the large rivers empty themselves 
into the sea, afler heavy floods which cover the low 
swampy lands, a similar muddy, black sand accumu- 
lates, and is very carefully collected, with profitable 
results, in the shape of fine gold in considerable quan- 
tities, and of the highest value because of its purity. 
Between the coast of Beypore and the Wynaad Hills 
on the low lying ground there are many traces and 
remains of ancient gold mines once worked, but now 
abandoned for no other apparent reason than the 
want of enterprise. The native minors could only 
go down to the water-bearing strata, where they 
would be drowned out for want of drainage appli- 
ances, which is no longer a difficulty. The searcning 
for gold mines, though no exact rules can possibly 
be laid down, is not, however, so very complicated 
or mysterious an occupation as may by some be sup- 
posed. There are certain geological and mineralogioal, 
as well as topographical rules, which, if carefully 
followed, will indicate the possibility of gold being 
discovered. Such were the data which enabled the 
late Sir Bhoderick Murchiston to indicate that gold 
would probably be found in certain parts of Australia 
and South Africa, though its existence was very well 
known beforehand in both cases, but the technical 
rules upon which Sir Bhoderick built his theory were 
strictly correct. 
As regards the Indian gold mines, the late Sir 
Kichard Owen. Director-General^ of the Natural His- 
tory Museum, owned a coffee estate in the Wynaad, 
which, during the ten years of his owner-ship, had 
cost him a thousand a year. Getting tired of his 
bad bargain, and his canny Scotch manager having 
retired and set up an estate of his own on his ac- 
cumulated savings, the Professor wished to sell the 
property, and on transferring it to the buyer, he 
said: "If you will examine the rivers on the estate 
yon will find gold"; and gold was actually found; 
but when the samples were shown to the leading 
merchants in Madras they attached no importance 
whatever to the discovery. That was in 1862, and 
it was not until 1875-76, when the India gold mining 
mania raged, that there was a rush for mining pro- 
perties, and fancy almost fabulous — prices were offered 
for mining rights in the Wynaad. Unfortunately, 
too often and too freely were such prices paid, with- 
out any guarantee that the properties contained pay- 
ing gold. Amongst other properties was that of Sii 
Richard Owen, for which £1,500 was originally paid to 
him; for this the modest sum of £100,000 was asked, but 
not obtained. The surface outcrop of the lodes of 
quartz did, neverthless, yield 11 dwts. of gold per ton, 
worth 40s. From 1875 to 1885 a great number of Indian 
gold mining companies were started, with an aggre- 
gate capital of many millions sterling, aud very 
exorbitant prices were asked and paid for mining 
rights. Large fortunes were aicquired by promoters 
and speculators, but when the boom wes Over most 
of these companies fell into the hands of 
"wreckers," and were wouud-up. One company, for 
example, which had bought its rights for £40,0(10 
cash and some fully paid-up shares, had no more 
money to send out a competent agent to test or 
work the mine, and it had, therefore, to be wound- 
up, aud the right abandoned. Yet there was clearty 
traceable on that estate six or eight good quartz 
reefs, which assayed 10 to 12 dwts. of gold per 
ton, worth 40a. 
This was a capital period for retired Indian Army 
officers and civilians, who rushed to the front as 
directors, managers, and experts, with about as much 
knowledge of Kold mining as a cow (or say a calf^ 
knows about the diffeiential calculus. 
There are very few gold mines put upon the 
market which could not yield a good return for 
capital actually expended in working them, but when 
two-thirds of the capital is taken as purchase price 
for the same, the returns must be very poor indeed, 
except in \ery exceptional cases. A gold or any 
other mine should never yield less than from 10 to 
20 per cent., for, of course, as the mine is worked, 
it becomes of less and less value till exhausted. 
The original cause of the furore in the Indian gold 
mines was that one of them, the " Alpha,-' which 
belonging to a large mercantile firm in Bombay, 
which failed with debts of over £2,000,000 sterling 
and mined a Glasgow bank, was as extravagantly 
over valued by the liquidators, who declared the mine 
in India would return all that was due to the 
creditors and the bank as well. On the strength of 
this statement there was a rush of Indian gold mines. 
It is a remarkable fact that 80 per cent, of the 
gold of the world is obtained from the beds of 
gravel, which contain small particles of fine gold, 
worth not more than lOd. to 2s. 6d. per ton of 
stuff. These gravel beds exist in many countries, 
but Russia, CaUtornia and Australia are the most 
famous. Such deposits froraerly existed in Spin, 
whence the Romans obtained one million sterling's 
worth of gold annually. The remains of their stu- 
pendous mining which still exist show that they 
were worked by hydraulicing, as in Calfornia, and 
they surpass anything done in that country at the 
present day. There are doubtless, similar deposits 
in some part of India which are as yet unexpToited. 
The most certain indication of the existence of gold is 
when it is found in the gravel of the various streams, 
as in the Wynaad ; and the quartz veins, which exists 
in the Silurian schists, in the same locality precisely 
as gold exists in North Wales. It has, however, 
been well iscertained that the presence of " Trap 
Dykes, " such as occur on the western Coast of 
India, when they are sound traversing the schistose 
rocks, that dislocation or contact apparently creates 
the quartz lodes which contain gold. These lodes al- 
most invariably run north-east and south-west, the gold 
being secreted in small veins and pockets, sometimes 
visible, but more frequently not. This gold is often 
very pure, but is more generally associated with 
silver, copper, zinc and iron pyrites; and it requires 
considerable experience and familiarity with minera- 
logy, as well as chemical knowledge, in order to 
determine not only the presence of the gold, bat also 
the value of the ores. Very poor ores can now be 
profitably reduced. 
The gold 8t and near to the surface in India has, 
of course, long since been gathered. Deep mining 
has been limited by the accumulation of water in 
the pits, but in many parts of India gold has been, 
and is still, obtained in some of the rivers, as from 
the Sona river (Gold River), which comes out of the 
Himalayas in Northern India. The gravel ia still 
washed for gold to a very limited extent. Much of 
the fine gold work done in Delhi by the sonars (gold 
smiths) is made from gold brought across the Hiam- 
alayas from Thibet, in the shape of smal ingots 
about the size of the finger. Traders bring this over 
with goat's wool and borax, which they exchange 
for wheat and warm woollen clothing. 
It is a curioup fact that true granite has never yet 
been found in India. Trap and schistose rocks are 
plentiful, some of them like stratified granite, and 
frequently so called, which is a misnomer. It ia in 
those schistose rocks where gold is found, and these 
are plentiful enough from the Himalayas to Cape 
Comorin. Were these gold mines properly and in- 
expensively worked, they would yield a fair profit, if 
they were not overweighted with capital, too often wie 
custom nowadays. To carry on a gold mine from an 
establishment in London 7,000 miles distant, reliance 
