Ch. 2: Gems in Ceylon

Page of 442

Text size:



	GOLD AND GEMS.	305

	{Extract from "-North Borneo Herald!'¹ dated 31\st Dec, from article entitled " 1884.") In the way of minerals the event of the year has been the verification of the reports of the existence of gold in the Segama river district. On the last day of October, Mr. H. Walker, Commissioner of Lands, started on an expedition in the river with some Sarawak Malays who had brought in a small quantity of gold to Sandakan. He was only three days on the field, but reports that he searched at thirty or forty different places from near its mouth (the Bilang river, a tributary of the Segama) "to a point two or three miles up the river and found gold at nearly every trial, generally in small distinct specks, large enough to gather with the fingers, sometimes larger, river worn gold, and always in conjunction with a black metallic dust and iron or copper pyrites. The rocks met with were granite, gneiss, quartz, felspar, basaltic limestone, jaspar, porphyries, red sandstone." We quote from Mr. Walker's report which is before us. It happened most fortunately that H. M. S. " Pegasus" was in harbour when Mr. Walker returned to Sandakan, and advantage was taken of the presence on board her of the Reverend Father Julian Tennison Woods, who has frequently been deputed by the Australian Governments to make reports on geological matters, and the following opinion was given by him:—"No. 1 shotty alluvial gold with very little silver, apparently derived from alluvial deposits, and should say if the proper leads were discovered would be very rich ; I should recommend trying beds of shallow rivers and small streams. No. 2 seems to contain a fair proportion of tin ore; would recommend a trial smelting." The advent of the N. E. monsoon with rain and heavy weather on the bar precludes further operation for the next one or two months, often which doubtless the investigations will be resumed, and, should tin, as well as gold prove to be in quantity, we shall have a very different report to make on the country's progress this day twelve months. Nothing whatever is yet known as to the terms on which the Company will allow these minerals to be worked; whether they will keep them in their own hands, lease them to a European or Chinese Company, or allow individual Chinese and Malay miners to work on the field, as in Sarawak. It appears to us, that if the fields prove sufficiently rich, the Government could not do better than adopt, with necessary modifications, the Queensland Gold Fields Act of of 1884, and the Mineral Lands act of 1882, in force in the same colony, which are fully described in Mr. C. S. Dickson'.s paper on "The Mineral Wealth of Queensland" read before the Royal Colonial.Institute in March last. One thing is certain, we think, and that is, that the probabilities are that the mineral wealth of this country will be best developed by Chinese labour and even by Chinese capital. The experience of the protected Malay States as regards tin tends to prove, so far at least, that, where Chinese companies can make fortunes, European companies may prove complete failures. For the ordinary Australian digger there is no field here—the tropical climate with its consequent fever, when much exposure to sun and weather has to be borne, is altogether against him, and this should be thoroughly understood. It is melancholy to reflect that the late Mr. Frank Hatton was on the eve of discovering the Segama gold fields when he met his death by accident on the banks of that river. On the West Coast, at Bauguey, chromium, copper and arsenic have been found ; in the neighbourhood of Tamboyukam, near Kinabalu, a silver ore and pyrites; a sample of native copper brought in by the late Mr. Witti is now in the London Office and it is said also to exist in the Paugalau river district a branch of the Padas. A rich sample of galena and silver, yielding on assay 115 ounces of silver to the ton, has been picked up by a native near Mumpakul, now in our territory, and a similar sample has been seen at Suyam Lawass, also in our territory, the natives averring that quantities can be obtained up 39

Page of 442