Ball — A Geologist's Contribution to the Sistory of India. 109 



tain composed of fossil salt sufl&cient for the whole of India. 

 Valuable mines also both of gold and silver are situated, it is said, 

 not far off, among other mountains, according to the testimony of 

 Gorgus, the miner of Alexandria." Since this salt crops out at 

 the surface, and in Kohat especially, can be easily quarried, it is 

 only natural that it should have attracted attention in the very 

 earliest times. 



GrOEZ. — Eecently I came upon a work, dated 1602, and entitled 

 Travels of Benedict Groez from Lahore, in the Mogol's Empire, 

 to China, in 1602,^ which contains perhaps the earliest account, 

 by a European author, of the production of jade in Kashgar. He 

 says: — "The commodity best for carrying from Hirakan {i.e. 

 Yarkand) to Katay (China) is a certain shining marble, which, for 

 want of a fitter name, Europeans call jasper. The King of Katay 

 buys it at a great price, and what he leaves the merchants sell to 

 others at exceeding great rates. Of it they make vessels, orna- 

 ments for garments and girdles, with other toys, whereon they 

 engrave leaves, flowers, and other figures. The Chinese call it 

 tushe."^ There are two kinds — one more precious, like thick 

 flints, which are found in the river Kotan, not far from the city 

 royal ; ^ the other meaner sort is digged out of quarries and sawed 

 into slabs about two ells in breadth. The hill where they are 

 dug, called Kosanghi Kasho, or the stony mountain, is twenty 

 stages from the same mountain. This marble is so hard that 

 they must soften it with fire to get it out of the quarry. The 

 king farms it every year to some merchant who carries provisions 

 for the workmen for that space of time." 



Goez mentions (p. 647) that besides this jasper {i.e. jade), 

 " diamonds of the rook,"* and azure (^. e. lapis-lazuli) were carried 

 as presents by ambassadors from the West to the Emperor of 

 China. 



As stated in my Economic Geology (p. 517), the mine's of 



1 New General Collection of Voyages and Travels. London: T. Astley. 1747. 

 Vol. iv. p. 645, 



2 In the original, Tusce—a, mistake, no. doubt, for " Yu she."" 



2 By the Jesuits' map the river of Kotan runs about ninety miles east of Tarkand. 



* I am not quite clear as to the precise significance of this phrase, " diamonds of 

 the rock," unless, perhaps, it is equivalent to "diamonds of the old mine," an 

 expression apparently used for stones having crystalline forms, called naifes in India, 

 as contrasted with "diamonds of the new mine," which were rounded pebbles. 



