Ball — A Geologlsfs. Contribution to the nistory of India. 81 



Ktesias informs us that there is a lake in the country of the 

 Pygmies upon the surface of which oil is produced. The Pygmies 

 are described as being covered over with long hair. A tribe cor- 

 responding to this description has been reported to exist in Upper 

 Burmah, and there also are the only largely productive petro- 

 leum deposits, which, moreover, we know to have been worked since 

 the earliest times.^ Silver also was and is found in this, region. 



This report, however, it should be clearly understood, requires 

 very distinct confirmation before it can be accepted. It is probably 

 merely a fable ; but the existence of sources of rock-oil and silver 

 in Upper Burmah is noteworthy, no other region being known to 

 produce both, though silver is found in many localities in India, 

 and rock-oil in Assam and the Punjab. 



The elekfcron or amber of Ktesias, a product of trees, was 

 certainly shellac, and the insects found with it, which yielded a 

 red dye, were lac insects. As, therefore, this amber does not 

 properly belong to our subject, I shall say no more about it at 

 present. 



Grold, we are told, was only obtained on certain " high-towering 

 mountains" inhabited by the grifl&ns — a race of four-footed birds, 

 about as large as wolves, having legs and claws like those of the 

 lion, and covered all over the body with black feathers, except 

 only on the breast, where they are red. Now, if we omit the 

 word "birds" in the above, and for "feathers" read " hair,",there 

 is no difficulty in recognising the griffins as the Thibetan mastiffs, 

 which are powerful, hairy, often black-and-tan-coloured dogs, 

 specimens of which, by the way, appear to have been taken to the 

 Persian Court as examples of the gold-digging ants, which were 

 first described by Herodotus.'^ We may, I think, therefore, justly 

 conclude that the locality referred to was situated in Thibet. 



Grold was also said to be obtained from a spring, being drawn 

 from it in earthen pitchers in which it congealed. This story is 

 obviously founded on the casting of ingots ; but I cannot see that 



1 Economic Geology of India, p. 138. 



2 Herodotus (i. 192) tells us, as pointed out by Le Normant, that India supplied 

 Babylon with " precious stones and large dogs ; and so great was the passion for the 

 latter, that Tritantaschjnes, Satrap of Babylon under the Achsemians, had set apart 

 four cities or large villages, exempted from all other taxes, on condition of maintaining 

 his dogs." — Manual of the Ancient History of the East, vol. i. p. 496, 



