Professor
Frederic Schiern, Professor of History at the University of Copenhagen,
to clear up a mystery which has been a puzzle to the historians and
philosophers of many countries for upwards of 2,000 years. A
translation of Professor Schiern's Paper,* by Anna M. H. Childers, will
be found in the " Indian Antiquary."! It is a most remarkable example
of learned research, and one very difficult to give in abstract It is entitled "The Tradition of the Gold-digging Ants." But perhaps before giving the conclusions which Sir Henry
Rawlinson and Professor Schiern have arrived at, it will be best in
this place to briefly describe the Pundits' observations :—
During
the expedition of 1867 the Pundit who had been at Lassafell in at Thok
Jarlung, an important gold field in the province of Nari Khossam, with
a large encampment of Thibetan miners, and took the opportunity to gain
information relative to the working of the mines. In the third
expedition, in 1868, another Pundit passed on as far as Rudok, at the
north-west extremity of Chinese Thibet, on the frontier of Ladak, and
on his way back from Rudok visited the gold fields of Thok Nianmo, Thok
Sarlung,J and Thok Jarlung. The map which accompanies Major
Montgomery's narrative of the journeys of the Pundits gives in addition
the gold fields of Thok
* " Verhand. Kgl. Danischen Gesellsch. der Wissensch." for 1870. Printed separately in Danish, German, and French.
f Vol. iv. p. 225.
X Thok
Sarlung had at one time been the chief gold field of the district, "but
had in a great measure been abandoned on the discovery of the Thok
Jarlung gold field. The Pundit passed a great excavation some 30 to 40
feet deep, 200 feet in width, and two miles in length, from which the
gold has been extracted."—Jour. Asiatic Sac. Bengal, vol. xxxix. pt. 2, p. 53. 1870.
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