SIBERIAN GOLD-MINING.
It is not my intention to go into very intricate details regarding
gold-mining in Siberia, but would rather give a few personal
observations of what is undoubtedly a very interesting phase of Asiatic
life, inasmuch as gold-mining in that country is very different to what
it is in any other part of the world. The Minusinsk district, in which
we were now located, though not by any means the richest in Siberia
(that distinction being held by the mines of the Lena district, in
the province of Yakutsk), is nevertheless looked upon as an extremely
promising province. The richness of the Lena district is considerably
counterbalanced by the high price of provisions, labour, and material
there, and its inaccessibility. The Minusinsk district, on the other
hand is the most remarkable in all Siberia for its cheapness, while
transportation is fifty per cent. lower than on the Lena watershed.
From Krasnoiarsk, where the trunk line of the Siberian Railway passes,
there is steamboat communication in the summer with Minusinsk itself,
and, as I have already said, the gold-bearing district extends from
there southwards to Chinese territory.
The majority of the mine-owners in the district were, I found, of
very humble origin, and it may be said, with the exception of one
man, Kuznetsoff, not one works on a large scale, while the majority
have started without initial capital whatever. The consequence of
this is that the works are generally of a mean character. Machinery
is of the most primitive order, and what there is is so badly and
unscientifically made that in all cases some twenty per cent., and
in many cases fifty per cent., of fine gold is lost. Hydraulicing
is quite unknown, and the chemical process has never been tried
thoroughly, the nearest approach to it being the fixing, on some of the
Kuznetsoff mines, of amalgamating plates in the sluices.
Most of the mine-owners, being without initial capital, are forced at
the onset to resort to tribute work, which is done by men who provide
their own food, tools, and houses, and erect their own washeries.
These men are given so many “archines” of land to work, and the gold
obtained they sell to the mine-owner for from three to four roubles per
“zolotnik” (about one-seventh of an ounce, Troy), the miner re-selling
the gold to the Government at its current value, the price of the
zolotnik varying from four and a half to five roubles. But the damage
which is done to the property by tribute labour is enormous. The men
work in gangs of three or four, burrow and scratch like rabbits here
and there, and dump their tailings wherever it is most convenient to
do so (frequently on new ground); so that before the whole of the
mine can be worked out, the virgin alluvial has to be got out from
under tons of débris. This improvidence on the part of the tribute
workers naturally ruins mine after mine. The men are content to get
a zolotnik per man per day, and in order to obtain this erect fast
sluices, and put over an enormous amount of alluvial so as to get the
big pieces, complacently letting the fine gold escape. One of the mines
we saw during our stay had been worked for some forty years mainly by
tribute labour, and the consequence was that although the property was
by no means worked out (it extended some three and a half miles up a
rich valley) it was impossible to make a profit out of it on account
of the thousands of tons of tailings which encumbered the remaining
portions of unworked ground. And this is no single instance. The Mining
Department is continually hammering away at the mine-owners to exercise
more system in their work, hinting broadly that not only are they
losing themselves but that the Government suffers.
I have already said that the machinery used is of a primitive
character. The tribute workers use the box-sluice, or “Long Tom.” This
is a wooden structure from twenty to thirty feet long, tapering from
two feet at its top to one foot at the bottom. It is generally erected
on the level of the stream, and, as most of the tributaries of the
Yenesei have a very rapid current, the drop is pretty acute. There
are no riffles or cross-pieces in the sluices to catch the fine gold,
but an iron plate pierced with half-inch holes is set at the end, and
through these holes the gold drops by its own weight into a shallower
undercurrent sluice, where a slow stream of water carries away the
lighter sand and leaves the gold exposed. The “Long Tom” constructed by
the Siberians is, however, so unscientifically made that it would be
hopeless to expect it to catch all the gold.
The machine of the mine-owner is a more elaborate, but at the same
time far from ideal structure. The sluice-house is built up over the
stream, and usually contains three wide box-sluices, dropping one into
the other, the last one being riffled with one or two bars. The length
of the run would not be more, on the average, than forty feet, while
the angle is such that the water flows in a perfect swirl from start to
finish. At the back of the house, and above the sluice-boxes, an iron
cylinder, pierced with half to three-quarter inch holes, is erected
on a wooden axle. The cylinder tapers from one end to the other, and
at its largest end a shoot is erected, under which the carts, which
carry away the big boulders, can be backed. The cylinder is revolved
by water power, carried along an aqueduct which varies in length
according to the fall of the stream. Into the cylinder at its smaller
end the auriferous sands are pitched, water at the same time being
conducted upon it by pipes along the axle, and thus the whole mass
is churned up. The boulders and stones which will not pass through
the holes gradually roll down the declivity of the drum to its larger
end, and thence into the shoot, while through the holes the fine sands
containing the precious dust fall into the sluices below. At the shoot
end, the collectors of the boulders carefully examine the stones for
the presence of any nuggets; but, as a general rule, the wealth of the
alluvial consists in the small pieces which pass through the holes.
If the sluices were longer, and the angle so arranged that the water
flowed smoothly and evenly over them, there would not be much to object
to in this system, but the miners acknowledge that fully twenty per
cent. of fine gold escapes into the tailings, without endeavouring in
the slightest to remedy the defect. Amalgamating plates, or even a
judicious use of mercury, would prevent much of this loss, but these
appliances are almost entirely ignored.
It is the very cheapness of labour and material in the Minusinsk
gold region which is accountable for the absence of modern mining
machinery, and the unscientific method of washing. In nineteen cases
out of twenty the present gold-miners have been washers, who, having
at some time or other hit upon an unclaimed gold-bearing spot, have
applied to the Mining Department for permission to work it. Instead
of getting capital they have invited tribute workers to extract the
gold, until, after a few years of rigid economy they have saved enough
money to erect a machine and can continue the work by ordinary labour.
Meanwhile, the value of the mine has been woefully depreciated by the
methods of the tribute workers.
The alluvial deposits of the Minusinsk district do not vary to any
great extent in richness; the average being generally under one ounce
to the ton. This is, compared with alluvial working in Australia,
Africa, and California, rather poor, but the cheapness of everything
must be taken into consideration as a big set-off. Men cost in the
winter twelve to fifteen roubles (25_s._ to 31_s._) per month, and
in the summer eighteen to twenty roubles (38_s._ to 42_s._ 6_d._) per
month. Wood is abundant, and costs nothing except the labour of cutting
it. Provisions are likewise very cheap; bread, meat, eggs, hay, and
such like necessities being cheaper in the Minusinsk valley than in any
other part of Siberia.
Mining material and provisions are generally carried from the townships
to the mines during the winter, so that the ice on the rivers can
be taken advantage of. The cost of transport is twenty-five kopecks
(6½_d._) per pood per 100 miles. The pood equals 36 lbs. 6 ozs.
English. The Minusinsk mining region covers about three hundred square
miles, so that an approximate estimate of the cost of transport can be
made.
One of the great features about the district is its great suitability
for hydraulic working. Water is everywhere abundant, and the cost of
erecting a modern hydraulicing plant would be undoubtedly very much
cheaper than in any other gold district. The alluvial deposits are
eminently suited for such work, and where virgin ground is touched,
all things being equal, hydraulicing ought to increase the profits on
the Russian methods by twenty-five to thirty per cent. For purposes of
comparison, the Russian gold-seeker looks to a profit of twenty-five
per cent. on whatever small capital expended. With labour-saving
machinery, and the ability to tackle five or six times as much stuff in
the summer as under the Russian system, it stands to reason that the
initial cost of machinery would soon be wiped out and the increased
percentage of profit obtained.
To show how arduous the Russian method of working is, there is one mine
in the Minusinsk valley which has been worked for upwards of thirty
years. The claim is three miles long by a quarter of a mile wide.
During the thirty years an average of thirty men per year have been
employed in gold washing, and the mine has already yielded gold to the
value of about £400,000. Even after thirty years, yet one-third of the
claim is virgin soil. With hydraulicing methods, and with no more men
employed, the mine could have been exhausted in two or three summers.
There is no working for quartz gold in the Minusinsk region, and but
very little in any other part of Siberia. There _are_ quartz deposits,
and the alluvial strata shows indication of the proximity of reefs.
Want of capital, want of machinery, and lack of enterprise have,
however, prevented the exploitation of this profitable branch of the
gold-mining industry so far.
We were very much struck to find the enormous number of mines the
owners of which were most anxious to get rid of them, although their
gold-books showed that even under primitive conditions the various
properties were showing handsome profit. It was strange to interview
sheep-skin clad moujiks who had rich mines to sell, and who could not
work them themselves simply by reason of their lack of capital or their
ignorance as to the right way to go about the work. Fancy prices were
asked at first, only to come down to an “old song,” when we evinced no
anxiety to buy.
Most of the worst features of gold-mining in any part of the world are
to be seen in Siberia. Stealing and murder are of frequent occurrence,
in spite of the large number of Cossacks which are employed to keep law
and order. One great grievance of the miners in the Syansk Mountains
is the stealing propensity on the part of the workmen, and the open
dishonesty which one owner shows to the other. For instance, an owner
will give his tribute workers, say, three and a half roubles per
zolotnik of gold obtained. The tribute worker, however, hands over
only a portion of what he finds, reserving the remainder for sale to a
neighbouring miner, who will probably pay him four and a half roubles
for it. Thus many of the miners prefer to work on the tribute system
instead of getting an ordinary wage. Even the paid labourer steals
his master’s gold, to sell it to some neighbouring miner; but as each
owner adopts precisely the same methods, and the utmost secrecy has to
be maintained, duplicity is rampant all over the fields.
Various prices were asked for mines, from 50,000 roubles down to 20
roubles. Another plan freely offered is to rent an existing mine with
option of purchase, the rent demanded by the owner varying from 200 to
300 half-imperials per pood of gold obtained. The half-imperial is 7½
roubles paper currency, and equals approximately 16_s._ The value of a
pood of ligature gold ranges from £1700 to £2200, the general average
value being about £2000.
On the whole, while the Russian mine-owner may make, what is to him, a
fortune out of gold-mining, the general prospect for foreign capital
in the Syansk Mountains is not a very alluring one if the workings are
continued on Russian ideas. There is plenty of gold in the district,
but an enormous quantity of alluvial has to be moved before it can be
won, and while this removal yields a profit to the Russian owner, that
profit would perhaps be wiped out if on top of the ordinary expenses
such as those to which the Russian miner is subjected are placed
director’s big fees, large salaries for engineers, and other expenses
which are generally incidental to British gold-mining companies. The
men who have made fortunes in Siberia are the owners who have in the
first instance taken an active part in the working, and have generally
superintended the business themselves. The overseers, engineers, and
such-like officials work for salaries which would not buy the clothes
of similar individuals in Western Australia or South Africa. One of the
mines we visited, belonging to the Kuznetsoff group, had a responsible
manager at a salary of 1500 roubles (£160) per annum. It would,
however, be in buying groups of mines, and by working with enormous
numbers of men and with the most modern machinery, hydraulicing, or
otherwise, that the Siberian gold-fields might be made to pan out as
profitable and with far less risk than that usually experienced in
the hunt for the precious metal in other countries. To work on a small
scale one must adopt the Siberian methods, and the foreigner’s chance
of doing this at a profit is not enhanced by the fact that he is likely
to be cheated and robbed far more than his Russian compeer.
[Illustration: TRIBUTE WORKERS IN THE SYANSK GOLD-MINES.]