236 liecords of the Geological Survey of India, [voL. xi. 
and was collecting stone in readiness for crushing as soon as this machinery should 
be again in order. 
Through the kindness of the Managing Directors, I have been supplied with 
the tables and statistics given in this paper; and these will show what the results 
have been up to date. They do not, however, show how and whence the stone 
was obtained, or the style of machinery used; I therefore enter into some detail 
in this paper regarding these two points. 
The main results of the gold workings up to date are, as nearly as can be 
made out—for no coirect returns were kept at first—that the gross amount of 
gold obtained by the three Companies up to the 14th of March 1878 is 271 oz. 
9 dwts. 14 grains: the average yield of gold per ton of quartz on all this amount 
has been 4'5 dwts.; and this gold has been sold at prices varying from Es. 40 to 
Es. 45 the ounce. This low average yield is calculated on the whole absolute ton¬ 
nage of quartz extracted in Wynad; but it is only fair to give the following 
averages for each Company’s working ;— 
Alpha Company ... ... 769'5 tons gives 2'27 dwts. 
Wynad Prospecting Company ... 99‘85 „ „ 3'02 „ 
Prince of Wales’ Company ... 322 66 „ „ 10'5 „ 
Eegarding the ‘ touch ’ of the gold, I have only two quotations from the Wynad 
Prospecting Company, namely :—“ It varies much in quality, running from 
to 9 ; Mr. Orr values the worst at Es. 36 per ounce.” Mr. Orr, whose finn of 
jewellers in Madras has purchased most of the Wynad gold, writes me:—“The 
gold is of good quality, better than sooga, gold,^ for which we have paid Es. 45 
per ounce.” 
The country around Dayvallah is much broken up into low grassy hills and 
ridges, varying in height up to 300 feet, on the summits and crests of which the 
quartz reefs generally occur, and the valleys between these all lead into the 
great 2,000 feet deep Carcoor cherrum, or vaUey, of the Western Ghats, or into 
the smaller cheirums to the west of Dayvallah. The mines of the original 
workers, or the Korumber excavations, and even those of the latest European 
explorers, have aU been run into the slopes of these small hills, or into the sides 
of the great cherrum; but very few of these have been driven at the lowest levels, 
or from the beds of the streams between the hills. Indeed, I doubt whether any 
workings have been excavated below the levels of these streams, except jierhaps 
in the sides of the Carcoor valley; and there is no known instance of shafts hav¬ 
ing been sunk to the depth of the permanently water-holding country-rock, below 
that zone of variable thickness into which atmospheric influences are supposed to 
extend. 
It is not here intended, after the popular cry, to imply that mining ought to 
liave been carried to any extraordinary depths, such as the 7 or 800 feet levels of 
.Australia, where working was in most cases only rendered necessary by the lodes 
having been worked out to these dbjjths ; nor is it an ascertained rule tliat richness 
’ Among nativw golilsinitlis. there are ordiuariI,v three qualities cf gold, of which “ sooga 
rs the modiiim. 
