A History of Hindu Chemistry from the Earliest Times to the Middle of the Sixteenth Century A.D. v1.c18.s6.1

v1.c18.s6.1

Having in the previous paragraphs described with tolerable fulness the various sources of loss of gold in the course of its artistic manipulation by the Indian goldsmith and having in each case pointed out the form in which the metal escapes the hold of the worker, we will now turn our eyes to the methods which now obtain in our country for recovering, as far as possible, the amount of material which is lost. It is perhaps worth while here to point out that to re-obtain the entire amount of lost material is absolutely impossible from the innate property of the extreme divisibility of matter; and our sole object in these restorative operations should be to secure the recovering of the largest amount of metal that can possibly be saved. There are two small classes of men in Bengal who obtain their living by extracting gold from the refuse and bye-products of the goldsmith's workshop. These are the *neharwala* and the *jamakwala* before alluded to. These classes of men are found to cluster in the suburbs of large towns and important centres of jewelry manufactures. In the smaller towns and more insignificant villages, the bye-products have either to be thrown away or to be disposed of in the best manner that the goldsmith can hit upon. Not unfrequently in such cases the goldsmith himself undertakes to play the part of a *jamakwala* and *neharwala* to the best of his abilities. But the unpractised manipulation of processes, which are themselves far from being satisfactory is sure to result always in the loss of a large portion of gold.