In the Matakon mine the dust adhered to fragments of iron,
emery, and lapis lazuli, from which it was easily detached and washed. The
less valuable Semayla placer produced dust in a hard reddish loam, mixed
with still more refractory materials; it was crushed in mortars with rude
wooden dollies or with grain-pestles. The pits, six feet in diameter,
reached a depth of from ten to twelve yards, where they were stopped by a
bed of hard reddish marle; this the Frenchman held to be the hanging wall
of a much richer lode. The people used ladders, but they neglected to
collar or brace the mouth, and the untimbered pit-sides often fell in;
hence fatal accidents, attributed to the 'earth-spirits.' They held gold
to be a capricious elf, and when a rich vein suddenly ran barren they
cried out, 'There! he is off!'
In later days Mungo Park drew attention by his famous first journey
(1795-97) to the highlands of the Mandingoes (Mandenga-land), and revived
interest in the provinces of Shronda, Konkodu, Dindiko, Bambuk, and
Bambarra. Here the natives collect dust by laborious washings of detrital
sand. His fatal second expedition (1805) produced an unfinished journal,
which, however, gives the amplest and most interesting notices concerning
the gold-production of the region he traversed.
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