LIME 



CALCIUM CARBONATE 



INDIAN LIMESTONES 



Chundm. 



sunna, hunna, hunu, etc. Its most general name in Sanskrit would a 

 pear to be sankha-bhasma, but certain writers give also churnd (= a 

 " powder "), sudha, kapardaka-bhasma, sukti-bhasma, etc. Its Arabic names 

 appear to be kils and ahu and its Persian nurJcah and ahdk. CHALK is 

 very generally known as khari-matti or kharya-mitti. UNSLAKED or 

 QUICKLIME is kali-ka-chuna or simply kali or kalai, often also called 

 ahak ; LIMESTONE is kalai-ka-pattar ; SHELL LIME is sipi-ka-chuna ; the 

 lime from LIMESTONE LIME being kattal-ka-chuna ; MARBLE is marmar ; 

 FOSSIL CORALS are sang-i-yahada. 



The word chundm, by modern usage, generally denotes, however, the 

 beautiful plaster or cement characteristic of many localities of India, 

 more especially in the south (see below in the paragraph devoted to Mortar 

 and Cements, p. 713). One of the earliest European writers to use the 

 word chuna appears to be Garcia de Orta (A.D. 1563), although fifty years 

 previously the Italian traveller Varthema describes the people around 

 Calicut as eating betel leaves along with a certain lime made from oyster 

 shells, which they call " cionama.' 



Sources. There may, in India, be said to be three great groups o 

 rocks or materials that afford lime, as follows : 



(a) Limestone, Dolomite, Miliollte, etc. (Imp. GdZ., iti, 148-50). Hardl 



any known geological formation in India is wholly without limeston 

 in some form, although many of the examples are exceedingly im 

 pure and scarcely worthy of the name. Mr. E. L. Sevenoakes, i 

 the Journal of the Queen Victoria Indian Memorial Fund (No. 2, 26-31 

 Indian Supplies, (a publication here utilised freely), describes some twenty different kin 

 of Ornamental Building Stones. Some Indian ornamental stones a: 

 of nearly equal merit to the marbles specialised below, and still othe 

 gradually decline until they have to be characterised as at most only goo' 

 building limestones. The limestones procurable in many parts of Bombay 

 and Sind, for example, are admirable building stones, though marble 

 nowhere exists in that Presidency. The Porbandar miliolite (foraminiferal 

 limestones) has been conveyed from Kathiawar to Bombay and even to 

 Calcutta, and is employed in the construction of some of the more im- 

 portant of the recent buildings of these cities. In South India it may be 

 said that crystalline limestones occur in Trichinopoly and Coimbatore, but 

 of very inferior quality ; good building limestones are found in Cuddapah, 

 Karnul and Guntur, and marbles at Palnad. In the Central Provinces 

 there are numerous examples of limestones and admirable building stones, 

 such as those of Wardha, Nagpur, of the Vindhyan formation, such as the 



Lime- 

 stones. 



Porbandar. 



Trichinopoly 

 Palnad. 



Wardha. 



Katni. 



Mirzapur. 



Lakhimpur. 

 Khasia. 



Com- 

 mercial 



Lime. 

 Satna. 



Sylhet. 



limestones of Katni ; and in the United Provinces the crystalline lime- 

 stone of Mirzapur, which occurs in the metamorphic rocks of that district. 

 In various localities of the Pan jab good limestones and even marbles are 

 found. Lastly a reference is essential to the limestones of Lakhimpur and 

 of the Khasia and Jaintia hills of Assam. 



The most important sources of limestone and lime may thus be grouped 

 commercially : 



" 1. SATNA in Rewah and at Katni, in the Jabbalpur district. From 

 both localities lime of excellent quality is carried as far as Calcutta (624 

 and 685 miles distant), and constitutes a large proportion of the lime used in 

 that city. 2. S YLHET. Along the southern foot of the Khasia and Jaintia 

 hills there is an inexhaustible supply of nummulitic limestone, which 

 formerly supplied the whole of the demand of Calcutta and Lower Bengal, 



710 



