PCE 2000 - Perlis Caving Expedition

           The State of Perlis is of economic significance on account of the small but peculiar type of tin mining which is carried out in the limestone caves of the Kaki Bukit area. Mining, dates from the early years of the present century but it is fairly certain that Chinese settlers began to exploit the deposits on a small scale well back into the nineteenth century.

The discovery of tin around Kaki Bukit was probably made by the Sinkeh Miners who established primitive methods to work the deposits. The industry was left undisturbed in this way for many years and it was not until just before World War I that European miners were attracted to Perlis bringing with them the more modern methods of mining. It was this event which enhanced the production figures and brought Perlis into prominence as a tin-producing state. The type of mining is of unique interest; it is carried out in caves deep inside the limestone hills and cave mining on such a scale is known from nowhere else in the world. Dynamite was used to blast open crevices too small to enter. Illegal tin mining has been carried out intermittently in the past amongst the foothills of the Sintok range.

Wang Kelian is the first big collection area below the granite contact zone. While the valley deposits would be expected to contain fair concentrations of tin-ore, haevy mineral washings yield suprisingly low value.

Wang Tangga is another large alluvial valley situated below Wang Kelian. The wang contains a somewhat bigger expanse of alluvium than Wang Kelian.

There were 21 alluvial underground cave mines operating in the State of Perlis. Access to these cave is by mean of tunnels blasted out at considerable expense by the miner. Location of these underground rivers and caves is very uncertain and can be costly.

The exploration of the limestone caves and underground passages is an arduous and frequently difficult and dangerous gamble which may or may not lead to the discovery of workable deposits.

Majority of the mines in the Setul hills are cave mines. The morphology of the cave mines follows a fairly uniform plan with an opening of varying size leading into one or more underground channels. The passages may in places be of such small dimensions as to require enlargement by blasting. At other points they may expand into enormous caverns. The floor of the channels may be level, steeply inclined or even vertical. The roof is usually smooth and waterworn or ornamented with pendent stalactitic formations. The alluvium itself may fill the major part of a channel or it may occupy a veneer a few inches thick and along the cave floor. Cavern which occur as off-shoots from the main channels are frequently through several hundred feet of deposit to the floor of the cavern. The length of workable caves varies greatly; one of the longest recorded being that of Perlis Tin Mines Ltd, which enters the limestone on the south side of Wang Tangga and runs for nearly 6000 feet into the hills. A cave may be either dry and dismembered or may contain a stream along which detritus is aggrading. Often an underground passage will degenerate into a narrow fissure and in such an event it is normally enlarged by blasting in an attempt to discover whether or not it continues beyond the constriction or to locate new channels.

The normal method of mining is to sluice the sand and mud using a monitor pump supplied with water from outside the mine and led through pipes to the working face. Separation of the tin-ore may take place either within the mine at a small palong built inside one of the large caves or else the washings are pumped out for processing. In cases where the alluvium is cemented by calcite and is too hard to mine by sluicing the deposits are mined by pick and shovel and are brought out by trolley to be crushed and separated by dulang washers.

Today, all mining activities has ceased mainly due to the low price of tin.