There are at present in the Eastern Archipelago two places called Mount Ophir, one of them a mountain in Sumatra, in the Palinubayang district, 9770 feet above the sea, to which the name was given by the Porturmese and they gave the same P name to a mountain 40 miles N. of the town of Malacca, 5693 feet high. In the vicinity of both of them gold has been obtained.
Africa.—There are gold mines in Africa at Kor dofan, between Darfurand Abyssinia ; also south of Sahara, in the western part of Africa from Senegal to Cape Palmar ; also along the coast opposite Madagascar, between lat. 22° and 28° S. Ethiopia was conquered by the Egyptians, and its gold mines were worked by Egyptian skill. The gold was found in quartz veins within a slaty rock, at various spots in the Nubian desert between Derr on the Nile and Souakin on the coast. They were said to bring in each year the impro bable sum of 32 millions of mime, 70 millions sterling (Diod. Sic. lib. i. 49), as was recorded in the hieroglyphics under the figure of the king in the Memnonium, who is there offering the produce to Amun-ra. To these mines crimi nals and prisoners taken in war were sent in chains, to work under a guard of soldiers. No titer known mines were so rich. From the word Noub, gold, the country received the name of Nubia, or the land of gold, and gold was shipped from the port afterwards by tho Ptolemies named the Golden Berenice, not many miles. from the modern Swink in.
In Arabia, silver, iron, lead, and copper aro met with in different parts, the last recently in Oman ; and gold is mentioned by the ancient writers, but at present it is not known to occur in Arabia.
In Cey/on, gold has been discovered at Sera gam. Ilam has been said to be the Tamil name of Ceylon, and to signify gold, but gold in Tamil is Ponnu.
In India, scales of gold are found in the gravel of river-beds over a great extent of country.
On the 21Ialabar coast, in particular, it is widely diffused. The geological formation there is very similar to that which led Sir Roderick Murchison to foretell the existence of gold in Australia. The discovery there in the 19th century, of shafts and wilts of unknown miners, shows that the region had long been known as auriferous.
In South India, writes Mr. Burr, gold occurs in Coimbatore and the southern declivities of the Neilglierry Bills. Sir Whitelaw Ainslie (Materia Medica, p. 514) mentions that the gold dis covered by Mr. Mainwaring in the Madura district, occurs mineralized by 111C0.118 of zinc, constituting a blende. The streams running through the Pa'ghat valley, which unite about 15 miles below Palghat cherry, and form the great Ponany river, all contain gold. In June 1832, Lieutenant Nicolson visited Darainpuray, at the foot of the Shevaroy Hills, Sattiamungalum, Donagancottall, Addivarum or Stremogoy, and Metapollum, where gold is found. Natives likewise wash for gold at the branch of the Cauvery which runs past Darampuray. Gold mines are mentioned by Heyne (Tracts, p. 342) as being worked at Suttergul, a few miles from Pungumpilly. At Pulkanath, 14 miles north of
Dindigul, just under the east end of the Putney mountains, gold is found in small particles in the alluvium and sand of a plain at the foot of a small mountain. Mr. Burr rnentioned the southern declivities of the Neilgherry mountains as gold districts ; and Dr. Benza stated that gold had been found on the plateau of the Neilgherry Hills, below Gradation Hall.
In 1831, Mr. Sheffield reported that gold-dust weighing 11,449 fanams had been collected in a few of the taluks of Malabar, and that gold is found in all the rivers of the Malabar Province, from the stream which falls into the sea at Elatur, about 8 miles north of Calicut, as far south as tho numerous streams flowing through the Palghat valley, which form their junction about 15 miles below Palghatcherry, to the gre,at Ponany river, and some of which reach the southern boundary between Cochin and Malabar about 110 miles to the S.E. of Calicut. Lieut. Nieolson during 1830 and 1831 traced the source of the gold to its matrix in the rocks of the Kundah and Mokurty Hills, and he found rnany pits 20 t,o 40 feet in depth, sunk on the different hills in the neigh bourhood of Devalla. Agricultural slaves of the Panier caste had, it is said, on several occa.sions during the last few years coine across nuggets of old which were of sufficient value to enable them g to cease work for two and three years at a time. Mr. W. King, deputy superintendent of the Geological Survey, examined a considerable portion of the Wynail, finding quartz reef apparently auriferoua through a conaiderable extent of country, and obtained gold at the rate of 2.5 dwt. to the ton from sonic of the surface outcrop. The chain more immediately connected with the gold washing is fornied of tho Kundah and Mokurty Ilills to the S.E. of Calicut and Neilgherries to the east, and the Wynad mountains to the N.E. These send off numerous lateral ranges, between which aro chief valley's, in most places closely covered with forest. The most extensive of these is that of Nellumbur, including nearly the whole of the Ernaad taluk, bounded on the E. by the Neilgherries, on the N. by Wynad, on the N.W. by a lateral range running S. from the Ghats called the Wawoot Hills, and on the S. by the Kundah and Mokurty mountain& From these on all sides innuinerable mountain streams descend, and, uniting near Nellumbur, form the Beypur river, of considerable magnitude, which falls into the sea about 8 miles to the southward of Calicut. In the mountainous district of Wynad, streams in the same manner descend through every valley, and unite into streamlets and rivers, which fall into the Cauvery in the 3lysore and Coimbatore countries, cornprising an auriferous tract of 1600 square miles. The part most abund ant in gold is at Malealain, near the Mysore frontier, where one grain in every 65 lbs. of earth occurs. In Wynad it is found in the sands of Cherankod, Devalla, Nelyalarn, Poneri, and Pulyode.