MINER A LOGICAL DESCRIPTION OF THE ISLAND OF BANKA. 7H 
mountain Befctung in a direction almost south of the mine-district, 
of Dsheniang. 
A small mine is worked within a mile of the one just described. 
The ore is here found nearer the surface ; the layers consist of sand 
and coarse siliceous fragments; a white friable clay is peculiarly 
abundant in this mine. 
The strata containing the ore have been very abundant at Sungie- 
liat. Jn an east-south-east direction from the stockade I passed a 
tract of several miles in which alternate spots occurred from which 
the ore had been extracted chiefly by small works. Many of the 
aqeuducts of the old mines were still discernable. Among the re¬ 
maining stones I found rock-crystal in great abundance, some had 
remained perfectly transparent others had the surface clouded by 
attrition and the angles rounded : a kind of impure crystal also oc¬ 
curred nearly opaque with the sides regularly transversely veined. 
The stones found at Wunhin already indicated the vicinity of an 
extensive tract containing rock-crystal and numerous specimens were 
formerly collected here by the miners. A little east on the road, I 
met a large vein of a siliceous rock covering an extensive surface; 
where it was exposed the crystals appeared regularly formed and near¬ 
ly transparent, a white friable powder was observed on the fracture. 
About one mile eastward of this rock large siliceous stones round¬ 
ed on the surface were found on the road, others appeared detached 
from larger fragments, the fracture of these was intersected like the 
siliceous rocks of Kamp&k &e. 
The road to the mines of Robo passes near the foot of the moun¬ 
tain Puwak whose promontories form the projecting point Tanjong 
Ray&. I here had an opportunity to examine some high precipit¬ 
ous rocks which were observable at a great distance from the road. 
They were granite similar to that found near the other mountains of 
Banka, but the component parts were more equally distributed and 
mostly in small grains; the mica existed in larger proportion and 
small laminae of schorl were also perceptible. Externally the fel¬ 
spar appeared in minute parallellograms and the particles of quartz 
much exceeded it in size. Many of these rocks were observed on 
the declivities of the mountain Puwak which is here without vegeta¬ 
tion for a considerable distance. Near the foot of this mountain 
and in the vicinity of these rocks, several small mines are at present 
worked, though the most productive spots have been exhausted and 
one observes extensive surfaces turned up by mining. 
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