It has generally been thought surprising that the European Companies who have so long had establishments in Sumatra should not have considered it an object to work these mines upon a regular system, with proper machinery, and under competent inspection; but the attempt has in fact been made, and experience and calculation may have taught them that it is not a scheme likely to be attended with success, owing among other causes to the dearness of labour, and the necessity it would occasion for keeping up a force in distant parts of the country for the protection of the persons engaged and the property collected.  Europeans cannot be employed upon such work in that climate, and the natives are unfit for (nor would they submit to) the laborious exertion required to render the undertaking profitable.  A detailed and in many respects interesting account of the working a gold mine at Sileda, with a plate representing a section of the mine, is given by Elias Hesse,* who in the year 1682 accompanied the Bergh-Hoofdman, Benj.  Olitzsch, and a party of miners from Saxony, sent out by the Dutch East India Company for that purpose.  The superintendent, with most of his people, lost their lives, and the undertaking failed.  It is said at Padang that the metal proved to be uncommonly poor.  Many years later trial was made of a vein running close to that settlement; but the returns not being adequate to the expense it was let to farm, and in a few years fell into such low repute as to be at length disposed of by public auction at a rent of two Spanish dollars.** The English company, also having intelligence of a mine said to be discovered near Fort Marlborough, gave orders for its being worked; but if it ever existed no trace now remains.

(Footnote.  Ost-Indische Reise-beschreibung oder Diarium.  Leipzig 1690 octavo.  See also J.W.  Vogel’s Ost-Indianische Reise-beschreibung.  Altenburg 1704 octavo.)

(**Footnote.  The following is an extract of a letter from Mr. James Moore, a servant of the Company, dated from Padang in 1778.  “They have lately opened a vein of gold in the country inland of this place, from which the governor at one time received a hundred and fifty tials (two hundred ounces).  He has procured a map to be made of a particular part of the gold country, which points out the different places where they work for it; and also the situation of twenty-one Malay forts, all inhabited and in repair.  These districts are extremely populous compared to the more southern part of the island.  They collect and export annually to Batavia about two thousand five hundred tials of gold from this place:  the quantity never exceeds three thousand tials nor falls short of two thousand.”  This refers to the public export on the Company’s account, which agrees with what is stated in the Batavian Transactions.  “In een goed Jaar geeven de Tigablas cottas omtrent 3000 Thail, zynde 6 Thail een Mark, dus omtrent 500 Mark Goud, van ’t gchalte van 19 tot 20 carat.”)