Ball — On Zinc and Zinc Ores. 327 



Malabar, where they met the fleets of the various nations — at first 

 Phoenicians, Greeks, Romans, Arabs ; afterwards Portuguese, 

 Dutch, and English, which successively had possession of the com- 

 merce. 



Now, although I have shown that an actual source of zinc ex- 

 ists in India, and was possibly worked long before the 17th cen- 

 tury, it is undoubtedly the fact that much of the zinc which 

 was shipped by the vessels of these various nationalities at Indian 

 ports had been first brought from China to be bartered for Indian, 

 or, it may have been, European commodities. Hence it is not 

 always safe to assume that the articles, though shipped at Indian 

 ports, and bearing their names, perchance, or other names of Indian 

 origin, were really products of India itself. 



As examples of the confusion which has arisen from similar 

 causes, I may quote the case of two localities where diamonds were 

 obtained as merchandise, with the result that the countries in 

 which they were situated often appear enumerated, erroneously, 

 as producing diamonds themselves. Thus, Ceylon 1 is spoken of as 

 affording diamonds, and the report, though perhaps partly due 

 to the false diamonds which are there made of white sapphires 

 and zircons, is probably mainly attributable to the fact that dia- 

 monds brought from Masulipatam, and other parts of the Coro- 

 mandel coast of India, were on sale there. Similarly, the diamonds 

 purchased by traders in Malacca, and other older ports of the Ma- 

 layan peninsula, were in all probability received first from Borneo, 

 and to some extent, perhaps, from India too, just as it is possible 

 that Borneo may also have contributed to the Ceylon supply. It 

 should be added, however, that the name Malacca was used in the 

 time of Linschotten 2 for Borneo, and hence much confusion by 

 subsequent writers, as I shall explain on some future occasion. 



To follow up all the information now available as to the oc- 

 currence of zinc ores in China would involve a very considerable 

 amount of space, and its treatment here would not precisely belong 

 to the specific object at present in view. 



An early account 3 of the process followed in the manufacture 



1 By Kazvini, in Ajaib-al-makklakat. See /. A. S. B., vol. xiii. p. 632, and many 

 other authorities. 



2 I.e. the end of the 16th century. 



3 Sir G. Staunton's Lord Macartney's Embassy to China, 1747, toI. iii. p. 382. 



