Hauptseite der Webarea

Goldrush in the Wynaad

W.Francis (1907)


A series of gold-bearing quartz reefs strike across the Wynaad gneiss. That they contain gold has been known for perhaps two centuries, and as far as 1793 the authorities in Malabar were requested by the then Governor of Bombay (in which presidency Malabar and the Wynaad were at that time included) to send him all information which could be collected upon the matter. A similar request was made by the Madras Government in 1828, and in 1831 the Collector reported on the subject at length. He said that the privilege of collecting gold in the Wynaad and the Nilambur valley of Malabar just below it had been farmed out for the preceding 40 or 50 years [...].
       About the same time that the Collector wrote this report, a Swiss watchmaker of Cannanore named H.L.Huguenin petitioned the Governor to assist him in exploring the mineral resources of Malabar and the Wy-naad; and the Lieutenant Woodley Nicolson [...] was deputed to assist him. They began to search in 1831 in the neighbourhood of Devala already mentioned, but were both quickly prostrated by fever. Descending to the Nilambur-Valley, they found a regular set of mines, with shafts from ten to fifty feet deep, worked by 500 or 600 Mappilla slaves belonging to the Nilambur Tirumulpad (the chief local landowner) who were required to produce a barley-corn weight of gold per man per diem. At a place called "Coopal" further down the valley and near the present Edavanna, were more mines worked by the Mappillas, and close under the Wynaad plateau were very many others. In spite of constant fever, which on one occasion nearly costs him his life, and the determined obstruction of the natives, who missed him with false reports and filled up the shaft to prevent their examination, Lieutenant Nicolson reported in such enthusiastic terms upon the capabilities of the mines that Government were induced to order some machinery and pumps to work them. Later on, however, a committee which was appointed to inquire more calmly into the question threw cold water on the whole matter and even Nicolson's proposal that the Wynaad, which clearly contained the matrix of the gold found in the low country, should be explored. In 1833, therefore, Government dropped the matter; and it slept for over thirty years.
       In the sixties of the last century, when the Wynaad had begun to be opened for coffee-estates, the traces of the old gold-workings attracted the attention of the planters, some of whom had seen the Australian gold-fields. There were the old walls built for 'ground-sluicing', the remains of the channels led along the hill-slides to wash the earth, the great heaps of rubble, the hollows in the rocks where quartz had been broken up, the stones with which it had been pounded, and the scores of primitive tunnels and shafts (some of them 70 ft. deep) burrowing into the slopes of the hills. These last are very frequent in the high wooded hill called Shulimalai, a short distance south of Devala. A few Kurumbas and Paniyans still subsisted partly by working for gold, though the higher wages obtainable on the estates had well nigh ["nigh" (archaic, poetic, obsolete) = "near".] killed the industry.
       Prospecting naturally followed the discovery of these sings of gold and in 1874 was started the Alpha Gold Mining Company (nominal capital, six lakhs) which began operations in a valley about a mile and a half south of Devala. One of the principle reefs was the well known Skull Reef, so called because the remains of a native miner were found in one of the old workings on it.
       In the next year Government deputed Dr.W.King of the Geological Survey to examine the country. His report was favourable. He said:
"My observations so far appear to show that quartz-crushing should be a success, in the Nambalakod amsham at any rate. Here there are eighteen reefs which are more or less auriferous ["auriferous" = containing gold.] in themselves, or as to their leader (...) With machinery and modern appliances, the reefs should pay even if only 3 dwts [1 dwts = ca. 1,42 gr, i.e. ca. 9,92 gr.]. Of gold are got always from the ton of quartz. The average proportion of gold for fifteen trials on different reefs is at the rate of seven dwts  to the ton and it is almost certain that many of these would have given a better outturn, could more perfect crushing apparatus have been used at the time". 
Two small companies were started in the next year or two, and in 1876 Dr. King again visited the field. By this time more reefs had been opened out and more extensive sampling was possible, and his views became less sanguine.
       In 1879, however, the Government of India employed Mr. Brough Smyth (for many years secretary for Mines in Victoria and held to be the greatest authority on the subject in Australia) to examine the Wynaad reefs; and his report, written in October 1879, was, to say the least, distinctly encouraging. He discussed in detail the value of a great number of the known reefs, most of which crop out in the country traversed by the road from Nadgani to Cherambadi; gave the results of assays made by himself and others which ranged from nil to no less than 204 oz. [i.e. 289,16 gr gold per t ore.] of gold to the ton of ore; considered that low-grades of ores running as low as 3 dwts. to the ton, could be worked at a profit; and concluded:
"The reefs are very numerous and they are more than of the average thickness of those found in other countries; they are of great longitudinal extent, some being traceable by their outcrops for several miles; they are strong and persistent and highly auriferous at an elevation of less than 500 feet above the sea, and they can be traced upwards to a height of nearly 8.000 feet; near them gold can be washed out of almost every dish that is dug, the proportion of gold in the soils and reefs in the neighbourhood of Devala is large; and the country presenting facilities for prosecuting mining operations at the smallest cost, it must be apparent to all who have given attention to this question that sooner or later gold-mining will be established as an important industry in Southern India."
In another place he wrote:
"It is not unlikely however that the first attempts will fail. Speculative undertakings have for their object the making of money by buying and selling shares are commended invariably by appointing secretaries and managers at high salaries and the printing of prospectus. This is followed by erection of costly and not sel-dom wholly unsuitable machinery; no attempts are made to open the mine; and then, after futile endeavours to obtain gold, and a waste of capital, it is pronounced and believed that gold-mining on a large scale will never prove remunerative."
This latter prophecy was fulfilled to the letter; the former was altogether falsified.
       The result of this sanguine report was the farcical boom of 1880. The stock markets were ripe for any speculation, however wild. [...] The mania began in December 1879, when a company with a capital of £ 100.000 was launched; and in the next nineteen months the number of companies floated in England amounted to no less than 41 with a capital of over five millions sterling, while £ 261.000 were also started in India itself. Of the English companies, 33 went to allotment and the sum obtained by them for investment in the industry amounted nominally to £4.500.000. Of this, however £ 2.375.500 was allotted for payment for the land in which the supposed mines were located � the prices of this ranged from £ 70 to no less than £ 2.600 - so that the sum left for working expenses was not more than £ 1.674.500. Mr. Brough Smyth himself was appointed manager of two of the companies, but retired on the ground of ill-health in 1882, when the tide had begun to turn.
       Such, at first, was the confidence of the public in the venture that by May 1880 the shares of the concerns launched at the beginning of that year were quoted at 50, 75 and even 100 per cent. premium, though the reefs had not been opened out, the machinery had not been shipped and in most cases the mining staff had not even arrived on the ground. The sensational reports which the companies' agents in India, the socalled "mining experts" and the financial wire-pullets afterwards cabled home opened to maintain these absurdly inflated prices for more than a year. "The whole mountain is worth putting through the stamps," said one wire; "four feet of mag-nificent reef, exceedingly rich in gold," declared another; "grand discovery; Needle rook reef turning out very rich, heavy gold," chimed in a third. At the companies' meetings in London, Directors declared that an all-round yield of an ounce a ton was a moderate and calm estimate, and prophesied dividends at rates running up to 50 per cent. It was in vain that respectable journals, like the "Economist" and the "Statist", deplored the prevailing reckless; while the fever lasted, the most earnest warnings unheeded. Nearly every planter in the Wynaad began to look up the reefs on his estate; "mining experts" abounded (one of these was a quondam baker and another a retired circus-clown) who reported on properties which sometimes they had never seen (and on one, at least, which did not even exist !) and were often promised a percentage of the prices realized; hordes of financial agents practiced the ancient game of drawing up attractive prospectuses, inducing the public to subscribe, forcing up the values of the shares, selling out their own at the top of the market and then hastily quitting the wreck. From little clusters of native huts, Devala and Pandalur blossomed suddenly into busy mining centres with rows of substantial buildings, post and telegraph offices, a hotel, a store for valuable quartz which was to be extracted, a saloon, and numerous mining-captains' bungalows perched on commanding sites. Pandalur even boated a well-attended race-meeting on a new course laid out round the paddy-flat there, and the head-quarters of the Head Assistant Magistrate were hastily transferred to the flourishing locality.
       But actual crushing was slow to begin, and in May 1881 confidence began to droop and the prices of the shares were barely maintained. early in June, however, the market received a sudden reviving impetus owing to the announcement in London that one of the principal mines had begun crushing and that the cabled result showed 4 oz. of gold to the ton. feverish excitement followed, the Alpha Company's £ 1 share went up to £ 15, these of several other ventures changed hands at 400 and 500 per cent. premium, and within a week the appreciation in the value of Wynnad mining scrip had amounted to half a million sterling.
       Than came the collapse. In the first week of July the manager of the mine in question explained that the 4 oz. [1 Ounce = ca. 28,35 gr, i.e. ca. 85,047 gr.] was the yield of one ton only; and that the next 19 ton had given barely 2 dwts. Shares dropped with a run 200 and 300 per cent � never to recover. Within another year fifteen of the 33 companies had passed into the hands of the liquidator.
       The yields obtained by the others were so poor (up to the first quarter of 1833 3.597 tons had yielded only 9.641 dwts. of gold, or an average of 2.7 dwts per ton) that operations were gradually suspended. One mine had spent £ 70.000 in three years and had only produced 7 oz.  of gold. The Phoenix mine was kept open for some time, and is said to have yielded sufficient gold to pay working expenses; but it was eventually shut down by or-der of Government owing to the frequency of accidents [...].
       About the same time [1901-02], under the orders of the Government of India [...] the Survey's mining specialist, made an examination of the certain of the mines to test the belief "undoubtedly still current in many quar-ters that the previous failures were in large part due to unsuitable appliances as well as to insufficient supervision". After many trials, the Phoenix and Alpha mines were selected for detailed experiments and 3.500 feet of the old gold drives were reopened. samples were taken systematically every teen feet along the veins, across their whole width, and assayed in Calcutta [...]. The conclusion arrived at was that "it is clear that with the methods at present available for the treatment of low-grade ores there is no hope of gold-mining in Wynaad becoming remunerative.[..]
       At Pandalur three or four houses, the old store, and traces of the race-course survive; at Devala are a grave or two; topping many of the little hills are derelict bungalows and along their contours run grass-grown roads; hidden under thick jungle are heaps of spoil, long-forgotten tunnels used only by she-bears and panthers expecting an addition to their families, and lakhs' worth of rusting machinery which was never erected.

Homepage der ESG/BRDDas Adivasi-Tee-Projekt ist eine AG der Bundes-ESG