1831 .] 
381 
On the Copper Works at Singhdna. 
To return however to the copper mines at Singh&na. On approaching the 
locky lidge in which those excavations have been carried on for many gene- 
rations, the openings of numerous shafts may be observed, giving access to 
the galleiies by which the hills are honey-combed in every direction, to the 
length of a kos, if the natives are to be believed. These shafts descend in a 
very irregular manner, but to a considerable depth ; their sides being notched 
and cut in such a way as to allow for ingress and egress without the help of 
ladders, and their section seems to be a rude oval about 5 feet by 4, or 4 by 3 
feet. When the shafts have reached a sufficient depth, galleries are driven 
out in various directions to follow the veins of ore, which are imbedded in a 
very hard matrix, and the following device is resorted to in order to facilitate 
the operation of extracting the metal. 
At the head of the mine, kan, a quantity of firewood is collected, and stacked 
in a compact manner to the amount of 150 or 200 maunds, which being 
set on fire, the miners make their escape as fast as they can, to avoid the 
chance of their being smothered in the gallery, for some fatal accidents arc 
said to have happened in this manner. On the third day, the workmen descend 
into the mine and find that the interior of the rock has been rent and split 
into huge masses by the violence of the heat; and they then proceed, if the 
mine he sufficiently cooled, to carry on the drift in the following manner. 
Each labourer is provided with a lamp, diya; a hammer, hatorl; a mining chisel 
or gad, tankl ; and a small wicker basket, tokrl. The lamp is placed uponthe 
workman’s head, and not only affords light for the execution of his work, but 
enables him also by watching the glittering particles of metal, to detach only 
such portions of the ore as may promise to give him the best remuneration for 
his labour. While at work he seats himself upon his heels, with the lamp upon 
his head as above-mentioned ; the hammer is in his right hand, the gad in his 
left, and the little basket upon his knees, in which he receives all the fragments 
of ore that are struck off by the chisel. 
The very confined posture in which the miners fire obliged to work, and (he 
exceeding heat and closeness of the galleries, together with the want of fresh 
a * r > render their lives almost a constant round of painful toil, and they may 
be fairly said to live entirely “by the sweat of their brow; their almost 
na ked bodies are constantly bathed in perspiration, and their breathing is very 
laborious > their constitutions in short are said to be so quickly broken up 
h y ^is pernicious employment that they commonly die at the ages of 3> and 
40 years. Their fixed wages are two annas a day, for which howeier they 
are only obliged to furnish one basket full of ore; an industrious man can 
earn much more, as he receives an extra sum for any additional quantity lit 
ma y furnish over and above the regular quantum ; and b> this means he can 
himself a holiday once in 8 or 9 days. # 
I have been informed, that the mines are only wrought during eight mont s in 
each year, from about the festival of Dasera, at the beginning of October, 
setting in of the rains, after which time a considerable quantity of water 
into them, and is again baled out at the commencement of the ensuing season. 
The labourers are also obliged to work during the night, discontinuing t eir 
Payment early in the morning, or the excessive heat might otherwise 
lhei »‘ : I have however seen those labourers, many of whom are Alndmtm, 
' ^ should have thought that the temperature would remaio coastaat da, aud 
*£ht.— E d. 
