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Sec. III, Ch. 2: The Ruby Mines of Burma

Sec. III, Ch. 2: The Ruby Mines of Burma Page of 366 Sec. III, Ch. 2: The Ruby Mines of Burma Text size:minus plus Restore normal size   Mail page  Print this page
166 .             The Ruby Mines of Burma.
less value. This bed having been found, a space is cleared, and the water supply so arranged by the clever use of bamboos, that it falls in a spray from a considerable height on to the cleared space or washing floor which is occasion­ally paved, but not usually. On to this floor and under the falling spray, the stiff byon is thrown as it is cut and finds its way down into the tail-water, by which the clay and a good deal of the lighter minerals are carried away and the washed sand deposited, the process being expedited and assisted by men with hoes stationed at intervals along the channel. At convenient spots deeper pools are formed out of which the sand is lifted in the flat baskets already referred to, washed at the surface of the water, and handed up to a picker who is usually the head-miner or his wife. The rejected sand is thrown in heaps, and it is the privilege of the women and girls of the village to pick these heaps over, and to wash for what they can find in the tail-water after it has left the mine proper.
The third class of mines, the Loodwins or Loos, are cave workings, and are exceedingly interesting, and generally very profitable to the miners. Almost all the mountain-ranges have a base of limestone, covered with the red marly clay or vegetable soil. In the outcrops of the limestone, the entrances to the caves are generally found. The ramifications of these caves are endless, extending in some instances for miles, and whereas at some points they are so contracted that it is only with the utmost difficulty a miner can work his way through, inch by inch, lying at full-length and drawing a small basket of byon, tied to one toe behind him, at others they open out into immense vaulted chambers, in which the effect of the light falling on the brilliant white walls and glistening over-arching roof is very striking.
Sec. III, Ch. 2: The Ruby Mines of Burma Page of 366 Sec. III, Ch. 2: The Ruby Mines of Burma
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