132 [No. 98 ECONOMIC CONDITIONS one mile to the west of the River Umbelasha, a tribu tary of the Bahr el-Arab, on the boundary between the provinces of Darfur and Bahr el-Ghazal. The mines consist of a large number of shallow pits covering an area of about half a square mile. In places the ore crops up in exposed ridges. Natives have probably worked the deposit for centuries; and copper, in the form of rings weighing from 10 to 12 pounds, or in small ingots, was at one time an article of barter in Darfur and western Kordofan . Selected specimens of ore brought in in 1913 assayed 14 per cent. of pure copper During the Mahdist revolt, the workings were abandoned, but the mines are far from being worked out . The question of transport, however , is a difficulty .

Gold used to be mined all over the Sudan north of Berber ( 18° north latitude) , and there are at least eighty-five important old workings which can , with certainty, be ascribed to the ancient Egyptians , or to the Arabs before the tenth century A.D.

About twelve prospecting licences had been issued up to 1918, and several attempts have been made in the last twenty years to reopen some of the old workings. However, on account of the difficulties of transport and the absence of water in sufficient quanti ties , only two concessions are at present beingworked -one atGabait, in the Red Sea province, and the other at Um Nabardi , in the province of Halfa , between Halfa and Abu Hamed , about 28 miles north -east of No. 6 railway station .

The holders of the Um Nabardi concession are the Sudan Gold -Field Company . This company was formed in 1904 , and began operations at Um Nabardi in 1908. By the end of 1917 it had crushed 168,893 tons of ore , yielding 86,622 ounces of fine gold, with a value of £363,815, theaverage yield of the quartz being 10.26 dwt . of fine gold per ton . The profit in 1916 was £ 19,074 , but in 1917 there was a decline , and in 1918 , for the first time since 1910, the working of the mine resulted in a loss ( € 1,337) . The quartz milled