MIN ERA LOGICAL DESCRIPTION OF THE ISLAND OF BANKA. 41/ 
greatest part of the base of this part of the island : most of them con¬ 
tain Iron in great proportion. The opposite ascent of the valley con¬ 
sists of similar fragments of the same hind of stone, and in the further 
course to Kampak, I observed it in several successive vallies dispos¬ 
ed in the same manner. The last part of the road passes through 
a marsh the greatest part of which is overflowed at high-water. It 
admits a passage with considerable difficulty: this the traveller must 
seek over the trunks of trees which accidentally lie in the way, and 
which have in some measure been united by the natives, by slender 
bridges, consisting of several long poles placed near each other. 
The hills consisting of rounded stones form the boundary between 
the purely alluvial districts of the island and those of the secondary 
nature which are formed of more fixed materials, Red-Iron-stone, 
Sand-stone &c., and contain those strata through which the ore of 
tin is distributed, and which are mixed with fragments from the 
higher districts, but the extent of each and their junction with each 
other, as far as I have been able to ascertain, will more properly be 
pointed out when the account of the mineralogical appearances in 
different parts of the island is completed. 
The general direction of the road from the present stockade at 
Kiabbet to Klabbet-lama, the old settlement at the bay of this name, 
is E. N. E. After leaving the immediate environs of those mines 
which are at present worked, the road passes through a thick forest 
about six miles, when one meets the remains of the mines attached 
to the former settlement. The country on this track is low and the 
ore of the former mines appears to have been contained in strata, 
which were in conjunction with those which afford the present mines 
in the central parts of this Peninsula. 
The thickness of the soil on the road to the old settlement, pre¬ 
vents in most cases a view of the surface: In one place only I re¬ 
marked fragments of Red-Iron-stone near the road. 
As the ground near the bay was successively exhausted the miners 
followed the strata to the central district: the spaces of the old mines 
arc generally covered, at the present period, with fresh vegetation, 
and it is only in a few instances that the substances which have been 
