Of rectangular form, the palette side is finely polished and carved on one side with three seal script characters, Yanguang Tu, 'Illuminating on Inkstones', the vertical sides incised with a long inscription describing the mining activities, ending with Guangguo renchen sui xia re shu, 'Recorded in the Summer of the renchen year of the Daoguang period', the reverse side finely carved in shallow relief with a map, depicting a landscape scene and inscribed with names of the duan mines and the surrounding locations25.6 cm tall, 24 cm long