Ball — A Geologisfs Contribution to the History of India, 85 



Pliny, in his list of the Indian Eaces, which is believed to have 

 been mostly borrowed from Megasthenes, says : — " Next follow 

 the Nareae, enclosed by the loftiest of Indian mountains, Capitalia. 

 The inhabitants on the other side of this mountain work extensive 

 mines of gold and silver." Capitalia may certainly be identified 

 with Mount Abu ; and although the highest authorities are divided 

 as to the identity of the Narese, the mention of mines of gold and 

 silver compels me to believe that the Nairs of Malabar were 

 intended, as in Malabar and the neighbouring regions are situated 

 not only the ancient gold mines which have attracted so much 

 notice of late years, but there are also enormous ancient mines in 

 the districts of Kadapah and Karnul from whence argentiferous 

 galena appears to have been extracted, and from this ore silver 

 was, very probably, obtained/ 



In another, passage in this list of Pliny we find the following 

 statement : — " Grold is very abundant among the Dardee and silver 

 among the Setse." On this Mr. M'Crindle remarks that the Setse 

 are the Sata or Sataka of Sanskrit geography, which locates them 

 in the neighbourhood of the Daradas. I was inclined to believe 

 that the country of the Setae may have been the Wazir-i-rupi, or 

 silver country of the Wazirs, i.e. Kulu, where argentiferous galenas 

 undoubtedly do occur. 



Colonel Yule identifies them, however, with the Sanskrit 8ekas, 

 and he places them on the Bannas, about Jhajpur, south-east from 

 Ajmir. There are. extensive ancient mines from which galena 

 was obtained near the Taragarh hill in Ajmir; but, so far as I 

 can ascertain, there is no record of their having produced silver. 

 Galena, known to contain silver, appears to have been mined for 

 at Jodawas in Alwar, and at Jawar or Zawar in Udepur, but this 

 .latter locality was chiefly remarkable, indeed unique in India, for 

 producing zinc.^ 



Further on, in Pliny's enumeration above alluded to, we meet 

 the following passage : — " Beyond the mouth of the Indus are 



^ Vide Economic Geology of India, p. 232. 



^ Todd' (Eajasthan, p. 12, 504), has described this as being a tin mine, an error 

 which has misled Lassen (Indisch. Alt., vol. i. p. 239), who states that the large pro- 

 duction from this mine may account for the fact that the Indian name of tin, already 

 alluded to on a previous page, was at so early a period spread throughout the westei-n 

 world. 



