Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 151, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 June 1910 — WHERE MUSCLE IS CHEAP. [ARTICLE]

WHERE MUSCLE IS CHEAP.

Methods of Graphite Mlaero of tlie Island of Qerlon. Drer 30,000 men on the little Island of Ceylon are already engaged ln graphite mining. Thus far graphite, or plumbago, from, which lead pencils and crucibles are ifiade, has been the only mineral founAThere ln sufficient quan* titles to make N .mining profitable. Within the past decade this trade has undergone considerable expansion, with the result that mining is being extensively developed. The mining has remained almost exclusively in the hands of the natives, and primitive methods are still the rule, the Inter* national Socialist Review says. In the richer districts more methodical working is introduced, but even here the mining equipment is quaintly unique. The pits resemble deep alitn or gashes in the rock. At the top a platform Is erected, and ladders, fashioned crudely of lengths of bamboo secured together with native Jhngle rope, are flung down the deep shafts for the use of the mine workers. The transverse sections, forming the rung of the ladder, are also made from pieces of bamboo similarly connected. In many cases the ladders are flung transversely across the shafts and fastened at the sides. The innumerable barefoot Journeys made over the rod* have coated them with a fine polish of graphite. They are as slippery a* glass. Only a native could cross and recross the deep mining shafts on these slippery rungs and retain his balance. Instead of being hoisted to the platform by ropes, the graphite Is loaded into long baskets, made by the nar tlves, and is borne on their shoulder* up the long ladders to the pit mouth. Always there is a Bwarm of shining, graphite-besmeared bodies, climbing laboriously upward with their loads. Always there Is a steady stream of workers descending. When the mines are flooded, holes are bored to lower levelß, and the water Is baled out by the natives.