FIVE DAYS IN NANING, 
2/9 
marsh plants of several species. In the bottom were five 
pits at some distance from each other, which Abdulrahman 
had dug a few years ago in settrch of gold. He had got a 
little, but not enough to make it profitable to continue the 
search. This indifferent success he attributed to the defect 
of skill in the pawang whom he had employed. The section 
made by the pits shewed the following beds : 
1. Upper layer of clay or mud.. 2 feet 
2. Angular fragments of quartz mixed with 
sand.... 1 § to 2 ,, 
3. Sand..... depth unknown. 
Gold was found in all the pits, disposed very sparingly 
and in minute particles in the second layer, or rather where 
it passed into the third. The quartz fragments, varying in 
size from 5 and 6 inches in diameter to minute particles, 
lay heaped around the pits. Some were whitish, but mo't 
had a bluish color from the presence of hornblende, occasion¬ 
ally in fine veius, but generally diffused. The h rnblende is 
undergoing decomposition, which causes the quartz to yield 
readily to the hammer. The rock exactly resembles some 
of the rocks of Pulo Ubin* in the old Straits of Singapore. 
The auriferous quartz vein is horizontal, but whether it was 
so originally, or this has resulted from the gradual formation 
of the hollow, by the washing away of clay and the decom¬ 
position of the hornbelende causing an inclined vein to 
disintegrate and subside to the level of the bottom, I could 
not ascertain. None of the fragments are in the least rounded 
by attrition.f One of the pits was dug close into the side of 
the hollow, through 3 to 4 feet of a brownish yellow clay, 
being that of which the upper soil of the hill consists, to a 
layer of bluish clay which when exposed to the air, had 
rusty stains, and in which the quartz fragments were here 
imbedded. r Ihis clay is evidently a decomposed felspatho- 
hornblendic rock. The matter in the bottom of the pit has 
a decided taste of iron. 
Gold is believed to be under the care and in the gift of 
a dewa or god, and its search is therefore unhallowed, for 
the miners must conciliate the dewa by prayers and olfer- 
* These interesting rocks I have described in the Transactions of the Bata* 
vian Society. 
f See some remarks on the important subject of the origin of the tin and 
gold containing layers of the Peninsula, Sketch of the Physical Geography of 
the Malay Peninsula (Joarn. Ind. Arch. Vol. II p 105.) The valuable des¬ 
cription of the minerals and mines of Banka, by Dr Horsfield may be consulted 
throughout with advantage (lb Vol. II p 373, 705,799.) 
