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 down to a depth of about 260 feet.  These, which were all choked up, were followed down to the bottom, and valuable lodes were found at about 150 to 260 feet.  Nothing was found in the old native workings, but remains of old chatties (earthenware pots) and the wooden props put in to secure the sides.  The native workings, in the opinion of Captain Plummer, were evidently carried on with skill and efficiency, and appear to be of great antiquity.  Large quantities of water were found, requiring pumping machinery working day and night for its removal.  How the natives in olden times got rid of the water is not known.