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Show Tin Producing In Halsvca. It did not take long to witness the extremely ex-tremely simple process by whioh the ore is extracted. After clearing off the ground, the surface and subsoil are removed re-moved for one, two or three meters, till the mineral, tin bearing bed is exposed; this is sometimes several meters thick. The mineral is carried in baskets, as we have seen, up the cocoa trunk ladders, to a wooden flume which is washed by a current of water. As the mine grows deeper this labor, with the rudimentary mean at the disposition of the Chinese, is made extremely difficult by the inflow of water. The washing of the tin bearing bear-ing earth is done by coolies, who, with a rake, remove the stones and work up the material in such a way as to eliminate the light sands that are mixed with oxide of tin, till only 25 or 85 per cent, of foreign matter is left. The mineral thus enriched is melted in little brick furnaces, with the aid of a bellows of bamboo, which is worked by a coolie as if it were a syringe. The white metal as it runs out is cast into the well known cubio ingote with one side flaring over the edges, so as to give them a pair of ears by which they can be more easily handled. A great deal of metal is certainly wasted in this process; and a second washing of the refuse would probably prob-ably be very remunerative. The Chinese and Malays call this lost metal young tin, which is returned to tha earth to ripen, because it is not yet old enough to stay in their primitive machines. It is only now, after no one can tell how many centuries since tin has been knowu and worked in the peninsula, that a rational system of operating the mines is about to be adopted. M. Brau de Saint Pol Lias in Popular fcjeienee Monthly. . i |