!
June 17, 1897.]
+
a
prietors of the mill intend to place -15,000 spindles in new mill
now in course of erection. The owners are well satisfied with their venture, and expect dividends of 25 per cent. on their capital. If this should prove to be the case, the industry will spread rapidly, though it is not in every city that a man like YANG, the retired taotai referred to above, can be found, who, combining shrewdness with honesty, has been able to command the *confidence of native capitalists. In most parts of China, the official paw is uncere- moniously thrust into every pie that pro- mises to yield any plums, and the bulk of the profits go to satisfy the cupidity of the mandarins. If the Shanghai mills prove equally profitable to those of Wusieh, there can be little doubt the Model Settlement will soon become a great manufacturing
centre.
THE" DAILY PRESS " DIAMOND JUBILEE ART SUPPLEMENT.
CHINA OVERLAND TRADE REPORT.
I
A VISIT TO THE PUNJOM MINES,
465
Mr. Phillips showed me a magnificient specimen of rich free gold that was taken from the off- shoot to which I have just referred. That specimen was to be sent to the Company's head office in Hongkong.
special photograph to be taken during the parade of the Hongkong Volunteer Corps on the 22nd inst., which Major Sir John Carrington, Commandant of the Corps, has kindly con- sented to present for reproduction in colours; and scenes kindly presented by Commodore But there is little or no development work Swinton Holland, A.D.C., showing H.M.S.going on. Operations have been temporarily Victor Emmanuel, H.M.S. Centurion bearing suspended in the leader stopes, and the ore the flag of Vice-Admiral Buller, K.C.B., and raised is being taken from the rich shutes in the western lode. The traces of the old Chinese H.M.S. Undaunted.
workings, showing to a considerable distance south of the Jalis mine, would appear to point to the advantage of exploration in that direction. During the present year a prospecting shaft [BY A CORRESPONDENT.] Recently, on my way down-river from Raub, has been sunk at Gobau, about five miles to the spent a few days at Punjom, the guest of Mr. north of Jalis, with fair promise, and the work there will be pushed forward on the arrival of and Mrs. Phillips, and took advantage of the
additional machinery. At present, headings— opportunity to learn something of what is be- ing done at the present time by the Punjom that is, the heaps of quartz got out and partially treated in former years by the Chinese alluvial Mining Company. There seems to be a little cofusion, and some controversy, as to the spell-workers are being mixed with the ore raised to thousands of tons of these headings available in in of the word Punjom. The natives call the keep the stampers going. There are many village at the mines Panggong, while the village the neighbourhood of the mine. The twenty- at the Company's landing place on the River Lipis two head of stampers will crush two thousand is called Penjom. For the sake of convenience, two hundred tons of soft headings per month however, and in deference to the generally ac
but of all mine quartz they can only manage cepted method of the commercial community, it
about fifteen hundred tons. will be better to stick to the one spelling- "Punjom." The Panjom Mines are about four miles by a rough cart road from the landing place on the River Lipis, and about eight miles by the new Trunk Road from Quala Lipis, whence boats go down the main stream to the river mouth. They stand in the corner of a charming amphitheatre of hills, and around them, grouped in picturesque confusion, are the numerous cot- A prettier situation it would be difficult to find. On gentle ac. clivities in the neighbourhood of the pits the bungalows of the European residents are built, and few are more happily placed than that of Mr. Phillips, the Mining Superintendent, and Mrs. Phillips. With them, also, resides Mr. Jolly, who is the Company's engineer and re- toduction officer. Near the foot of the hill on which this bungalow stands is the Police Station-the Company has its own force of Ekh police-and the offices, and farther to the right are the pits and the stampers; while the cyanide works are established on the side of an adjacent hill. The varions works seem ad- mirably placed in their relation one to the other, and the communications between them are ingenious and convenient. The area of the Punjom concession comprises one hundred square miles, of which the village of Punjom is the exact centre, and the original company was formed and operations started in the year 1884.
THE MINES.
THE GOLD-GETTING PROCESSES. The processes for separating the gold from the quartz are much more numerous and elaborate than they are at Raub. Up to the present time the tailings at Raub have never been touched, but at Punjom nothing is left undone to win every possible particle of the precious metal. Here, after the ore has been crushed, and has passed in its sandy form through the screens, and the wells, and over the amalgam tables and the blanket tables, it passes into long boxes called buddies. buddles
These ате twenty inches deep, twenty The inches wide, and eight feet long.
water are continually rushing sand and
each of which through the buddles, at
a Malay is stationed with a long broom, and sweeps against the current. The result is that the heavy metal lies at the top of the baddle, and the light sand flows away to the tailings pump, by which it is pumped up to the cyanide works for treatment there. When the baddles are full of the heavier matter, called concen- trates, which have been deposited by the action of the brushes, they are cleaned out, and the concentrates are sent up to the calcining furnace,
After being dried on top of the furnace they are calcined to get rid of im- purities amenable to heat, and are then taken out and brought back again to the mill, where they are placed in Berdan pans, rotated by machinery. In these pans, which contain & quantity of quicksilver, the sand is ground exceedingly small, and flows away with the water, while the gold becomes amalgamated with the silver, and falls to the bottom of the pans.
The light stuff that has flown away travels into sottling tanks, and is afterwards taken up for treatment to the cyanide works, while the residuum goes into the river.
As announced in our advertisement columns, arrangements have been made by this journal with Mr. Wellesley Parker to produce an art supplement, giving views of Hongkong in colours, surrounded by pictorial advertisements. Mr. Parker has produced similar supplements in connection with the leading Australian papers, and in that country the idea proved most acceptable to both subscribers and advertages of the mining camp. tisers. From Australia Mr. Parker proceeded to India, where he made arrangements with the Statesman for the production of a coloured supplement illustrating Picturesque Calcutta, and so great was the demand for advertising space that instead of one a series of four sheets was filled, which is now in course of printing, Mr. Parker then came the Far East and intends to return to India to work the other cities of that country in the next cool season. On his way to Hong. kong he stayed at Singapore, where arrange- ments were made with the Straits Times for the production of supplements illustrative of Singapore and Penang. Here again the demand for advertising space so far exceeded anticipations that a series of three sheets had to be arranged for Singaporo alone. Mr. Parker is now devoting his attention to Hong- kong, where he has a better field than Singa- pore to work and his success will no doubt be proportionately greater. He will shortly wait on those interested, and we may say that The Jalis Mine, with its various shafts, is he comes with a reputation which will entitle the head quarters of the Company's operations. business men. to feel that all promises will be Apart from the work at this mine very little faithfully carried out. The advantages to ad- other work is proceeding at the present time. vertisers are most pronounced. In the centre Work is being pushed forward at the August The shaft is two of the sheet will be a magnificent panorama of shaft with very fair success. Hongkong surrounded by advertising spaces hundred feet deep, but sinking is going on in which each advertiser will have his building, below that, and the work is now well on its way exterior or interior, represented in colours by to the next level. Quite large bodies of ore,
The cyanide process is an interesting one. obromo-lithography, and, if he so desire, I was told, are being left above the bottom drawings of the brands and tables of his goods level to be worked out later. The main lode, There are six ore vats, each capable of contain. or the articles themselves in quaint designs. I was informed, cutting through a slate anding twenty tons of tailings, though they are The whole will form an attractive souvenir of porphry formation, runs north and south, with the colony, the artistio excellence and utility of an eastern underlay. To the west of this main which will entitle it to a permanent place on ore body is a lode striking practically at right the walls of hongs and offices. The finished angles which, as far as present developments sheet will be given away with one issue of the have shown, does not cut through the main the east. This westerly lode Hongkong Daily Press and Hongkong Weekly lode to Press, in which will appear statistical is a very conspicuous feature of the pro- and descriptive article on the colony, including perty. It is a well-defined reef, underlying the north, averaging from twenty to a special account of each advertiser's business. to The advertiser then receives fifty of the com- forty feet in thickness, and containing in the main paying auriferous quartz. In addition to pleted sheets and article with a printed note on
these two main viens there are several minor the margin of his sheets as follows: "Presented with the compliments of
He also spurs, apparently an offshoot, lying quite flat from the east and west lode. It was in this off participates in the circulation given by all other advertisers and in the continuous sale shoot that there was obtained in the month of of the sheet. Mr. Parker's idea is a distinctly April the remarkable yield of one hundred and good one and must commend itself to all who thirty-three ounces from only two hundred
That is a characteristic of the can appreciate the value of advertising in a weight of ore.
mines at Panjom. They are low grade mines, new and conspicuous form.
but, occasionally, very rich pockets are
During April one hundred and countered. ninety-four ounces of gold were obtained from pockets in this way. The continuity of the ore bodies has been established by several levels, one at one hundred and ten feet, and an inter- 'mediate level at one hundred and fifty feet,tained in the tailings.
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The following scenes have been presented to the supplement and will appear surrounding the main birdseye view of Hongkong, which will be two feet long:-The new premises of the Hongkong Club, showing the same as completed, the grand entrance, and one or two interiors, by the courtesy of the Chairman; a
en-
only charged to the extent of eighteen tons. A four per cent. solution of eyanide is run into these vats and dissolves a large proportion of the gold in the tailings. The solution remains - in the vats for twenty-four hours, and is then run off into zinc extraction boxes. These extraction boxes are filled with fine zino filings, and the chemical action set up precipitates the gold in the form of a black slime. The solution mean- while has passed through the bores, and it is pumped back again to the solution vat. In the process it has lost two per cent. of its cyanide, and must be brought up to the required strength before it is again The precipitated slime is ready for use. collected in enamelled iron tabs, and filtered, and the slime, free from water, is taken away to the smelling works. Here it is mixed with flux, which consists of a mixture of borax, carbonate of soda, and silica, and then smelted in plumbage crucibles. The flux gathers to itself all the dirt and impurities, and the bullion is left in the bottom of the crucible. The cyanide process is successful in extracting be- tween fifty and sixty per cent. of the gold con-
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