INDIA'S RESOURCES IN IRON 



10 Dharwar and other Archaean schist series. The moat conspicuous 

 examples of this class occur in the Salem district and the Sandur State 



in tin- I } 1 1. 1 rv district of the Madras Presidency, and in the Chanda, Raipur, 



luMmlpore Districts of the Central Provinces. The chief ore now 



used at the Barakar iron-works for the manufacture of pig-iron is clay 



. containing 45 to 48 per cent, of iron, and occurring as nodules 



in sh.ik formation separating the Barakar and Raniganj stages of the 



nuda series in Bengal " (Imp. Gaz., 1907, iii., 145-6). 



Notwithstanding the fact that rich deposits of one or other of these 



us iron ores exist here and there all over India, and have, from the 



ancient times, been worked up in a desultory manner by the Natives, 



still there has been but one successful attempt on European lines and by 



modern appliances. Indeed some of the recent investigations conducted in 



India would seem to establish belief that few of the important supplies of 

 ore are of sufficiently high merit to defray the cost of carriage to Europe 

 (or even to Indian centres of fuel supply) and leave a margin of profit. 

 The opinion would thus appear to have been borne home that the 

 \l>ansion of India's iron production must, for the present, be looked for 

 in the immediate vicinity of fuel supplies. 



South India. Some few years ago many persons urged that if it paid 

 to convey Spanish ore to England to be there made into " pig " which in 

 the ordinary course of trade was profitably carried even to India, it must 

 of necessity pay to convey the rich ores of Madras to the coal mines of 

 India to be there worked up in competition with the imported foreign 

 metal (Watt, Mem. Res. Ind., 1894). It was also even upheld that the 

 time might soon arrive when England would have to look to Salem for 

 its supplies of magnetic ore. In his presidential address to the Iron and 

 Steel Institute (of May 1893), for example, Mr. W. Richards suggested 

 that Indian ores could and should be substituted for Spanish. And still 

 further it was loudly proclaimed that with some co-operative organisation 

 of the Forest Department, South India might easily supply charcoal in 

 such abundance and at such a price as to admit of production of iron after 

 the fashion pursued in Styria and certain districts of America. These 

 and other such opinions led to various technical investigations and reports 

 >n the part of experts employed both by private individuals and by 

 Government. The Secretary of State for India, for example, submitted 



ic then available information to Mr. Jeremiah Head, formerly President 

 of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, for favour of his views, the 

 result being a most valuable contribution dated May 2, 1896. This is 

 concluded as follows : " I regret to have to say that in my opinion it is 

 not at present practicable to conduct an iron industry at or near Salem 

 upon the methods pursued in Styria and certain districts of America where 

 charcoal is employed." It was perhaps but natural that with a subject 

 which had not passed from the stage of personal opinion to that of ascer- 



iined results, some at least of Head's statements would be challenged. His 

 il conclusion, in fact, has by no means been universally accepted in India, 



id the accuracy of the information on which he based his calculations of 



st of production of iron, as also the supply of crude ore for direct export 

 to Europe, has been called into question. The Board of Revenue, Madras, 

 for example, observed that "If it can be shown that Mr. Head's estimate 

 can be safely reduced to Rs. 50 per ton f.o.b., as the Board believes that it 

 can be, and freight can be obtained at 15s. per ton, the estimate taken by 



689 44 



IRON 



SucoeMfnl 



Att. ; m|,t. 



Proximity to 

 Fuel. 



South 

 India. 



Magnetic Ore. 



Jeremiah Head'i 

 Report. 



Data called 

 into Question 

 Board of 

 !; MM* 



