Page:Journal of the Straits Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society (IA journalofstrait121878roya).pdf/48

20 contained in it; but this project was also abandoned as unprofitable, the percentage of the precious metals in a ton of the residuce left bpboiling point [sic] smelting out the Arsenic being too small to repay the cost of their extraction.

Silver is unknown in the Territory, except in the connection here stated, or naturally alloyed with the gold. It is not improbable that the argentiferous arsenic at Bidi may be found rieber in silver than has yet appeared, but the analyses made heretofore have discouraged this hope. A ton of the ore being calcined, yielded the following result:—

This was considered an average sample, although slightly higher precentages were obtained by another trial.

"Nickel inis [sic] found over the whole Territory of Sarawak, particularly in the gold and tin (sic) districts; in the former it is very abundant, combined with iron and Cobalt it has not yet been worked."
 * —The first of these minerals is found in small quantities in the Bidi mines, but is not, I believe, sufficiently abundant to be of any practical value. Cobalt and NackelNickel [sic] I have not met wiuhwith [sic] myself, but Mr. Low has the following passage in his "Sarawak" on their occurrence:—

is disseminated throughout the whole Territory, and all the clay-shales and sandstones are more or less ferruginous; those in the gold districts being often impregnated with the peroxide. No dedositsdeposits [sic] of iron-ores are known in this country of any commercial importance. The richest specimens come from the Upper Rejang. The Kayan tribes inhabiting this district smelt their own iron, using charcoal only, in their own rude furnaces, and the steel they manufacture is preferred to that of European make. The ores I have seen brought down from Balui, the right-hand branch of the Rejang, are (1) a very pure oxide with metallic fracture and strongly magnetic, and (2) a botroidal argillaccous ironstone, not magnetic, with dull purple clayey fracture, very hard, aud much worn and rolled. This latter ore is said to be dug out of alluvial clays.

A clay-ironstone having a peculiar seoriaceous appearance is scattered though the alluvial clay of Upper Sarawak and is especially abundant in the gold and antimony districts—indeed