CHAPTER II.
Resources.
The mountains are rich in minerals. Gold, silver, copper, and iron are found in many places. There is now an American company working a gold mine which is said to be paying well. An English company also has a concession which is being worked. The natives do a good deal of gold mining, but in the most primitive manner, only washing the sands of the river beds and taking what they can find. In some few places they have made shafts, but their methods are so crude that little has been done in this sort of mining. They build a fire on the rock, and when it is hot pour water on it and break up as much of it as they can. Then the stone is pounded and washed in a wooden pan the same as the sand of the river. This must be a very slow way of sinking a shaft, though I am told that they have sometimes gone as deep as two or three hundred feet. They can go only straight down, since to turn out and follow a vein as do modern miners would cause the shaft to be crooked, and the smoke could not rise out of the way of the workmen.
In many parts of the country iron is found in great abundance. This is true of some parts of Kang-won Province, where I have often seen the mining in progress. This iron is not hidden deep down in the bowels of the earth so that one must dig to see it, but it is lying near the top—in fact, on the top in many places
(23)
