Page:Indian Shipping, a history of the sea-borne trade and maritime activity of the Indians from the earliest times.djvu/149

 to have originated in the peculiar customs of the Tibetan gold-miners; and the name "ant gold" was possibly first given to the fragments of gold-dust brought from Tibet on account of their shape and size. The "horns of the gold-digging ants" mentioned by Pliny and others have been supposed to be simply samples of the ordinary pickaxes used by miners, which in Ladakh and Tibet were made of the horns of wild sheep, mounted on handles of wood. Herodotus may also have meant the gold-diggers of the desert of Gobi, who were in the habit of excavating gold from beneath the earth, and from them Indian traders of the Punjab neighbourhood could obtain their supply of gold. The portion of India conquered by Darius was situated chiefly to the north-west of the Indus, and, according to the authoritative testimony of Professor V. Ball, F.R.S., the eminent geologist, "the Indus itself, as well as some of its tributaries, is known to be auriferous." Professor Ball also rejects the view held by Lassen, Heeren, and many others that gold (and silver) was not indigenous to India, but imported from abroad, e.g. from Tibet, Burma, or even Africa; for as he points out, "our most recent knowledge of India affords evidence that the amount of gold derived from indigenous sources must have been very considerable before the alluvial deposits were exhausted of their gold."