over the centre
of the board, so that the metal should fall into the depression by its own
weight, and the earth wash over the edges. After a few minutes' stirring,
they put the metallic matter thus freed of earth into a piece of broken
pot, but only after examining it for gold, which they did by inclining the
board and passing water over the metallic sediment which adhered to it.
They thus drove the light particles before the water, leaving the heavier
metal behind just at the edge where it could easily be seen, however small
the quantity." Lieutenant Warren, having afterwards heard that gold was
extracted from mines near Marikoppa, three miles from Ooregum, visited
four of the mines, the descent into which was made by means of small foot
holes which had been made in their sides. The first was two feet in
breadth and four in length with a depth of about thirty feet, and in
distance fifty feet (of galleries I presume), the others were from thirty
to forty-five feet deep. "The miners extracted the stones (how we are not
informed) and they were passed from hand to hand in baskets by the miners
who were stationed at different points for the purpose of banking the
stones. The women then took them to a large rock, and pounded them to
dust. The latter was then taken to a well and washed by the same process
as that used when washing the earth for gold, when about an equal quantity
of gold was found to that procured from an equal quantity of the
auriferous earth."

The only people, writes Lieutenant Warren, who devote their time to
searching-for gold are Pariahs, who work as follows. "When they resolve on
sinking a mine, they assemble to the number of ten or twelve from
different villages. Then they elect a Daffadar, or head man, to
superintend the work, and sell the gold, and they subscribe money to buy
lamp oil, and the necessary iron tools, then partly from knowledge of the
ground, and partly from the idea they have, that the tract over which a
peacock has been observed to fly and alight, is that of a vein of gold,
they fix on a spot and begin to mine."

Such, then, was the condition of gold mining in Mysore about the end of
the last and the beginning of this century, but in ancient times mining
was carried on by the natives to very considerable depths, and I am
informed by Mr. B. D. Plummer, who has had ten years' experience of mines
at Kolar, and worked the Mysore and Nundydroog mines, that the old native
workings went d