skill and means, that a tin mine here would be productive. A vein of tin is in fact exposed to the day, and would only require for a considerable period of work the precaution of well-supported galleries and shafts to allow of its contents being easily extracted.

The Kahan hill is, I conceive, an indication of a valuable repository of tin. It is but a quarter of a mile from the creek communicating with the river, which is accessible to any boats. Its proximity to Mergui offers also great facility for the procuring of labour and supplies.

18. The localities, therefore, which appear to hold out the best prospects for tin, are: first, for stream tin, the Thabawlick river and the Thengdon river; and for mine tin, the Kohan hill. They all produce tin of the same nature and quality-viz., crystals of the native peroxide, being a combination of oxygen and tin only.

19. No difficulty would be found in procuring labour from Mergui for carrying on tin-works at either of these places.

20. The location of the coal mine on the great Tenasserim river has given rise to much additional cultivation along the banks of that river, where there are many Kareen villages, from which parties on the Thengdon could be supplied. Fruit trees, not indigenous to the place, and other traces of a considerable population having once occupied its banks, are observable on this river. The banks of the little Tenasserim are thinly occupied by Siamese villages. The country in this direction, except near the banks of the river, is utterly unpeopled, and appears always to have been so.

21. Communication by water from the Thakiet to the Thabawlick tin ground is not open in the dry season, but the distance by land is short. The produce of two lines of country, that of the vicinity of the great and little Tenasserim rivers, passes the town of Tenasserim at the junction of these rivers, only eleven miles from the Thakiet, and no difficulty in procuring subsistence for working parties on the Thabawlick need be apprehended.

257

XXVI.

REPORT ON THE MANGANESE OF THE MERGUI

PROVINCE.

By Captain G. B. TREMENHEERE.

["Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal," vol. x. pp. 852, 853.1

1. DURING my stay at the Tenasserim coal basin, a piece of manganese ore (black wad) of good quality was brought to me by a Kyreen, who stated that it had been found accidentally in the bank of a stream called the Thuggoo, which enters the great Tenasserim seventeen miles below the coal site. Subsequently several other pieces of the same ore were brought by Mr. T. A. Corbin, assistant to the Commissioner, from the Therabuen river, five miles above the Thuggoo, and from an intermediate spot, the locality of which had been previously known, and had been, I believe, originally pointed out by Lieut. Glover, of the Madras army.

2. In proceeding down the river I visited these spots, and found at each that a valuable bed of manganese ore existed close to the surface of the country. It had been apparently cut through by the action of the streams and river before mentioned, leaving a section of the bed of ore in their banks covered only by the débris of the banks themselves. Large quantities might have been carried away, but a few hand specimens only were taken, which sufficiently show the nature of the deposit, and are fair samples of what might be easily collected.

3. The best specimens, Nos. 1 and 2, are from the Thuggoo river and the bank of the great Tennasserim. That of the Tenasserim did not appear to be at the surface of so pure a quality, but the existence of the bed being known, it is perhaps premature to pronounce it an inferior ore, from the examination of the specimens taken from a hole extending not two feet into the bank. No. 5 is a portion of manganese rock projecting into the great Tenasserim river, near the mouth of the Therabuen stream.

4. For the localities above mentioned I must refer to the sketch accompanying my report on the tin of this province recently forwarded.1

5. Of the extent of these manganese beds it is difficult to pronounce. The face of the country in which they are situated is flat, thickly overspread with soil, and with the densest jungle. It is not, as far as I could perceive, intersected by many streams which would afford the means of tracing the mineral deposit. The great Tenasserim river has passed through the manganese

1 1 [This sketch and those referred to on p. 262 have not been reproduced.]

S

bed in one spot two and a half miles removed from two other points at which it occurs to the north and south, at both of which it is likewise discovered near the surface by the action of the streams Thuggoo and Therabuen, the probability therefore is, that it is an horizontal deposit, covering many square miles. But without indulging in conjecture, there is sufficient at the localities referred to, to indicate large quantities of manganese ore, which could be collected by penetrating through the soil lying above it, and immediately near the spots in which it is now exposed to the day.

It occurs in the form of the black oxide, and is the manganese of commerce. It is largely consumed in Europe in the preparation of bleaching compounds, and when pure is valuable to the manufacturers of glass.

The soft black ore, No. 1, is a hydrate of the peroxide of manganese, known under the name of wad. It contains of water two equivalents, or 9 per cent.

Iron, 196 grains by analysis.

Its specific gravity is 1'47.

The specific gravity of the grey peroxide No. 4 is 2'46.1

(Signed)

G. B. TREMENHEERE, Capt.

Executive Engineer, Tenasserim Division.

MOULMAIN, September 11, 1841.

XXVII.

PARAGRAPHS TO BE ADDED TO CAPT. G. B. TREMENHEERE'S REPORT ON THE TIN OF MERGUI.

COMMUNICATED TO THE ASIATIC SOCIETY THROUGH THE SECRETARIAT OF THE GENERAL DEPARTMENT.

["Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal," vol. xi. pp. 24, 289.] Of the existence of tin in considerable quantities in the province of Mergui there cannot, from the facts above stated, be much question; and from the trial of the produce of one man's labour, in a given time, there appears to be sufficient to justify every expectation of a profitable employment of labour on an extensive scale.

1 ["British Burma Gazetteer," vol. i. p. 64; ii. p. 398. "Journal of the Indian Archipelago," vol. iii. p. 733.]

The places at which the trials were made were not selected as the best from previous information, but were arrived at more by accident than design, and the stanniferous gravel and sand collected where the bed was tolerably level, stream slack, and where the greatest deposit appeared to have recently occurred.

No part of the bed of the Thabawlick which was examined was found wholly destitute of tin, and it is reasonable to conclude that the ore exists in numerous spots, especially in the vicinity of the hills from which the streams arise, in far greater abundance than is shown above.

The results, therefore, which are given in detail, can only be considered rough approximations to the quantity of tin these streams would afford, and to the probable out-turn with an establishment properly superintended. Much economy in labour might be effected in collecting the sand and gravel for the washers, but no better mode could, I think, be adopted in separating the tin in the first instance than by people accustomed to work with the flat, conical-shaped troughs before described. The quantity obtainable would fully repay the employment of men in this operation.

The tin, as produced by the washers, should be placed on sloping boards, and water conducted over it from a trough pierced with holes for the purpose, in order to get rid of foreign particles; and it would then, after being finely pounded, be ready for smelting. Of all metals, tin is in this process the least troublesome after the ore is freed from the earthy and silicious particles with which in other countries it is often mixed.

The crystallized form in which it here occurs renders its separation extremely easy, and the whole process of stamping and dressing, which in England are tedious and expensive, can thus be dispensed with. No arsenic or sulphur being mixed with the ore, it need not be roasted before it is placed in the smelting furnace.

It would thus appear that the tin of the Mergui province offers no ordinary inducement to the outlay of capital, without much of the risk, uncertainty, and large previous outlay usually attending mining adventures.

G. B. TREMENHEERE, Capt.
Supt. of Forests, Tenasserim Province.

XXVIII.

SECOND REPORT ON THE TIN OF MERGUI.

By Capt. G. B. TREMENHEERE, F.R.S., Executive Engineer,
Tenasserim Division.

["Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal," vol. xi. pp. 839-852.]
No. 3373.

From the Military Board

To the Hon. W. W. BIRD, Deputy Governor of Bengal.

FORT WILLIAM, 1st October 1842.

HONOURABLE SIR,-In continuation of our letter No. 3403, dated the 16th October 1841, we have the honour to submit in original Captain Tremenheere's letter, No. 183, dated the 27th August last, together with his second report on the tin of Mergui, and to recommend that a copy of this report, and also of the one forwarded with our letter above alluded to, with the specimens of tin, may be transmitted to the authorities in England, or to Professor Royle.

2nd. The Superintending Engineer has reported to us that he has received from Captain Tremenheere three more boxes of specimens. These we have called for, and when received in this office they shall also be forwarded to Government.

(Signed)

We have, &c.,

J. H. PATTON, Chief Magistrate.
J. CHEAPE, Lieutenant-Colonel.
T. M. TAYLOR, Lieutenant-Colonel.
A. IRVINE, Major.

No. 183.

To Major R. FITZGERALD,

Superintending Engineer, South-east Provinces, Fort William.

SIR, I have the honour to forward by the H.C. steamer Enterprise my second report on the tin of the Mergui Province, and to advise you of the despatch by the same opportunity of three boxes of specimens, the contents of which are enumerated in the report.