treachery of his followers, lost all his self-acquired dominion, Captain Smith commanded the left wing of the brigade ordered to storm the enemy's camp, which was pitched on strong high grounds, protected by the Fort of George Ghur : The young hero, panting with honourable ardour to distinguish his party, bravely led on; and the troops, emulating his example, rushed forward in front of the enemy's guns; when a shot from a four-pounder severely shattered

his leg, which was left dangling from his knee. In this deplorable situation he remained some hours, and was, at length removed to Jygur, where he lingered several days.

He bore the torture of unskilful amputation with uncommon firm ness; but he sunk under the fever which the wound and operation oc casioned; and he died on the 8th of October, 1801, in the 25th year of his age.

SIR,

Bangalore, Oct. 1, 1804.

ing the eastern boundary of Mysore, in the month of February 1802, 1 heard a vague report that gold had been found in the earth, somewhere near a small hill called Yerra Baterine Conda, about nine miles east of Bodicotta, a large village in the Colar district, and near which the line of frontier I was then describing was shortly to take me.

Having offered a reward to any person who would communicate any information tending to establish the fact, a Riot (or cultivator) of a small village called Worigum, not far from the above-mentioned hill, presented himself, and offered to shew the place where this gold was to be found, and which he asserted was close to his village. The same man shortly afterwards made good his assertion, by bringing

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which being tried with success before me, induced me to investigate the subject more minutely.

On my arrival at Worigum early in February, I collected a working party, consisting chiefly of women, who being supplied with a vaning basket, a small broom, and an hollow board to receive the impregnated earth, removed to an adjoining jungle west of the village, and gathered the earth principally out of small ruts and breaks in the ground into which the course of the waters was likely to drive the dust during the rainy season. Having collected a sufficient quantity of this earth, they went to the side of a tank, where they separated the metallic substances which it contained (and which consist of iron and gold dust) in their very coarse way. This was done by

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placing the hollow board which held the earth in such a situation in the water as just to be overflowed when resting on the ground; then stirring the earth about with the hand, so as to keep it as much as possible over the centre of the board, they thus caused the heavier substances to precipitate, and the earth to wash off over the edges of it.

They next separated the gold from the iron dust by inclining the board, and with the hand passing water over the metallic sediment which adhered to it, a method which, from the superior specific gravity of the gold, drives the iron particles before it, and leaves the heavier metal behind, just at the edge; where, from the contrast with the dull colour of the iron, the gold dust appears perfectly distinct, however small the quantity.

The last process, that of separating the gold from the iron, was performed by means of a small quantity of quicksilver, generally lost for want of good management. I have been so far particular in the foregoing account, as it may not be thought uninteresting to trace the mode by which these untutored people have succeeded in performing what is deemed a nice operation.

The next day of my arrival at Worigum, I received information that considerable quantities of gold were found in mines at a place about four miles south of Worigum, and close to a village called Marcoopum. I accordingly removed immediately to that place, and was soon after shewn the pits from whence the ore was extracted.

Having collected à sufficient number of the men who gain their livelihood by this apparently un

profitable trade, I descended with them into the first mine which fell in our way. This was nothing more than a sort of well about 30 feet in perpendicular depth, branching out in horizontal galleries at the bottom, which of course follow the direction of such veins of ore as are met with.

A sufficient quantity of metallic stones having been extracted before me, I caused the miners to separate the gold in their own way, and this was done by simply pounding the stones to dust, and washing off the stony substance in the same manner as they had cleared the gold dust from the earth at the surface. As I shall hereafter be more particular on the probable worth of both, I now advert to the knowledge which the inhabitants of these districts seemed to have had of the gold mines in their neighbourhood.

Having moved on the 19th of February to a large village called Batamungalum, on the road from Colar to the Carnatic, about eight miles N. E. from the mines, I enquired of the aumillar (or head manager of the district) whether he had ever heard that gold was to be found so near to the place of his residence; to which he answered, that "the fact had been known long since, and that Tippoo Sultan had formerly sent a Bramin to Marcoopum to examine the mines; but as it was found, after a trial of several weeks, that the produce just balanced the expence incurred in exploring them, and left no profit to the Circar, the attempt was dropped as a bad concern."

This account coincided with that given me by the natives at Worigum; but did not satisfy me, that the method of inquiry pursued by the Bramin had set the question finally

to

to rest: indeed they agreed in their account, that he never went beyond the limits of their village during the whole time that it lasted; and I was soon after satisfied how imperfectly he had examined the strata of this district, on being informed, and soon after making sure by personal experiments, that gold dust was also collected on the banks of the Pal-aur river, near a small village called Booksagur, laying about four miles S. E. of Batamungalum, a circumstance which I was assured had never reached his knowledge.

Any metal found in a state of dust on the banks of a river may fairly be supposed to have been driven there by the stream, this naturally lead me to suppose, that the gold was not homogeneous to the soil at this place; and in order to make sure of it, I examined the earth at various places at the superfice on each side of the river, and I invariably found it impregnated with much larger particles than was the case at Worigum, where it was washed by the stream, but perfectly clear of it out of its reach and below the surface.

It then became an object to trace out the tract from whence this gold dust proceeded, a fact which I established several weeks afterwards; but which will best be related, after mentioning the circumstances which led me to the discovery.

It is probable that I should have given up any further enquiry into this subject, after having returned from Booksagur, had not Lord Clive (then governor of Madras, and the liberal patron of all useful investigation) to whom I had communicated the former part of this account, expressed a wish, through Captain Wilks, his Lordship's private secretary, that I would revisit

the mines near Marcoopum, and examine them more particularly than before. Having in the interim had an opportunity of meeting the Dewan of the Rajah of Mysore, together with Mr. Webbe (our resident at that Durbar) and finding them disposed to assist my enquiries as much as lay in their power, I left them at Bangalore on the 19th of the same month, and on that day encamped near Cargoory, a village on the western bank of the Poniaur river, six miles south of Ooscotta.

When once a subject has been started, the mind easily follows it up, and a variety of circumstances originally slightly considered, naturally recur to our recollection as they tend to support a favourite opinion, and to forward the object of our pursuits.

As I was surveying the district of Ooscotta, in the year 1800, I heard a story from one of the Bramins at that place, the purport of which was, that "in the prosperous years when the gods favoured the Zillah of Cargoory with an ample harvest, grains of gold were now and then found in the ears of paddy, which grows under the tank, laying north of that village."

I treated this at the time as a fabrication, and took no further notice of it; but now that my mind was taken up with enquiries of this sort, on my return to Cargoory, I began to conceive that there might be more truth in the story than I at first imagined; as it was by no means in possible that the banks of the Poni-aur river might be equally impregnated with gold dust as those of the Pal-aur its sister river, and that the plant cultivated in its vicinity might very well in that case carry up now and * A 2

then