PLATINUM  OF  BORNEO. 
417 
PLATINUM  OF  BORNEO. 
{Communicated  by  Professor  S.  Bleekrode,  Royal  Academy  of  Delft.) 
Several  authors  on  the  statistics  of  metal  mention  Borneo  as 
a  source  of  the  valuable  metal  Platinum,  so  much  required  in 
the  chemical  and  industrial  arts.  There  are  some  who  calculate 
that  Borneo  can  produce  from  250  to  400  kilogrammes  yearly.  It 
is  surprising,  but  not  the  less  true,  that  up  to  the  present 
time  the  collection  of  platinum  there  has  been  almost  ne- 
glected. 
In  1831,  the  resident  of  Banjarmassin,  Mr.  Hartman,  found 
the  platinum  scales  in  the  gold  sands,  and  Dr.  L.  Horner  has 
confirmed  it  for  all  the  gold  sands  that  are  worked  in  the  val- 
leys of  the  Ratoes  mountains  of  the  Laset  district.  The  obser- 
vations of  this  much-lamented  naturalist  soon  found  their  way 
into  the  European  journals,  having  been  communicated  by  Leo- 
pold von  Bach  to  Humboldt,  who  called  it  «  Eine  his  jetzt  weni^ 
bekannteErscheinung,"  (Central  Asien,  1843,  p.  365.) 
Dr.  Horner  estimated  the  amount  of  platinum  in  the  gold 
sands  of  Borneo  as  one  of  platinum  to  ten  of  gold,  and  in  this 
proportion  he  calculated  the  eventful  produce  of  that  island  at 
300  kilograms  (six  cwt.  per  year),  and  this  could  possibly  be 
augmented. 
The  existence  of  platinum  was  afterwards  confirmed  by  other 
naturalists  of  the  Dutch  government.  Dr.  S.  Muller,  who 
visited  the  southern  district  of  Borneo,  has  given  a  description 
of  the  diamond  mines  of  Martapoera ;  after  the  separation  of 
the  diamonds  by  washing  the  sands,  there  remain  gold  and 
platinum  scales ;  the  gold  is  carefully  collected,  but  the  platinum 
is  rejected  as  valueless,  under  the  name  of  mas  kodokh  (gold  for 
the  frogs),  because  neither  the  Chinese  nor  the  natives  know 
how  to  work  it. 
Dr.  Schwaner,  who  travelled  through  the  district  of  the  river 
Barito  and  the  south-eastern  country,  during  1843-47,  has  given 
an  accurate  description  of  the  geological  position  of  the  three 
very  valuable  minerals,  diamonds,  gold,  and  platinum,  as  they 
are  associated  together  in  the  diluvium  of  that  island.  It  ap- 
pears that  the  same  kind  of  diluvial  debris  from  the  rocks  of  the 
27 
