is
scraped with the mamoties, and at length the resulting heavy material
having been concentrated by being raked up against the stream, the old
miner steps into the channel with his murriya in his hand and
fills it with the sand, &c., piling the stuff as high as he can on
the dish. A little pool meanwhile having been made he places the wooden
vessel with its weight of sand in that and " puddles" the sand, always
scrupulously washing and examining the small stones before he throws
them away. By tilting the dish and adroitly moving the stuff with one
hand as the water flows over it he finally obtains a black, heavy, iron
sand, and on this being sufticiently concentrated, the vessel is filled
with water, a swinging motion is given to it so as to throw the gold
into or a little above the hollow in the centre, and then again tilting
the murriya, he takes water in one hand and allows it to fall
through his fingers on to the sand in the lower part of the dish, and
thus in a little time clears the dish of the refuse, and at length is
able to show the gold almost completely separated from the black sand.
The
washing is continued dish after dish until all the material
concentrated in the sluice has been treated. The Korumbar's skill in
manipulation is very great and he is also patient and painstaking.
When the gold is got together it is put into a leaf, and any black sand in it is washed off.
The operation of washing a dish of stuff usually occupies half-an-hour or more.
The murriya is
made of hard, heavy wood. It is from eighteen to twenty-two inches in
length, sixteen inches in breadth, and from two to three inches or more
in depth. There is a projecting pin at one end and a knob at the other.
It becomes smooth and black by use and shows the smallest particle of
gold quite clearly.
In
many parts of the Wynaad District the remains of the walls built by the
miners when ground-sluicing, the lines of their races now almost
obliterated, and heaps of rubble extending in some places over many
acres, are to be seen; and in the jungles on cutting into the earth on
a hill side, one finds that soil has been disturbed. Indeed the
evidences of the patient labor of the native miners are so numerous and
are found in so many localities that one pauses to consider the length
of time which must have elapsed since gold-washing first became an
established industry in this part of India. The soil and rubble made to
yield its gold in times long past is now again consolidated, covered
with herbage, and supporting large jungle trees.
Washing with the pautty.—The box used by the natives for washing auriferous earth more resembles a puddling through than a sluice. The faulty is
a trough made of wood. It is from six to seven feet in length and one
foot or more in breadth. On discovering a spot where there was a
sufficient quantity of auriferous earth these boxes were employed; and
it would seem from the report of a Committee appointed, under date 14th
December 1832, to examine the gold mines in the Zilla of Malabar, that
when they visited the mines near Mambat (Beypore river) there were
fifty or sixty Moplahs at work.
The Committee state that the pauttics were
placed over a running stream; or water was conveyed to them in races.
The boxes were placed in a sloping position. At the lower end small
pieces of bamboo were laid across which acted a "riffles." Two men, the
Committee state, were required to work one fautty. One day they collected the earth and the next day they washed it. The earth was carried to the pautty in the murriya, and
the men stirred the earth with their hands, removing the stones,
&c, until only heavy sand remained. This residuum was washed in
the ordinary way in the murriya, and quicksilver was used to
collect the gold, the amalgam being afterwards wrapped in a rag and
placed between two pieces of burning charcoal until the heat
volatilised the mercury and left the gold clean.
The pautties were used during the wet season on the higher lands, and. in the dry season in the beds of the, streams,
3d
