168 Notices of Memoirs — Mineral Wealth of India. 



India has been justly reputed for immense mineral wealth, 

 especially in diamonds and other gems, in which she, no doubt, 

 at one time, bore the palm before the rest of the world, but no large 

 amount of the precious metals has been enumerated among her 

 products. 



In the Mint, at Delhi, there are ancient traditions of the art 

 of refining both gold and silver. 



The so-called '-'silver mines" at Manikaru have never been 

 worked to any extent, the produce is arsenical pyrites and galena. 



Of about twenty mines about to be opened in Kulu, one is an 

 antimony mine, in which a vein, about two feet thick of the solid 

 ore, nearly pure, is reported to exist. Others are of argentiferous 

 galena, yielding a large per centage of copper — 90 ounces of silver 

 to the ton, besides lead and gold — while those of copper have not 

 been sufiiciently opened up to obtain fair samples for assay. It 

 is expected, however, with additional capital and a larger tutored 

 staff, another year's exploration will add considerably to the known 

 mineral wealth of Kulu and the Southern Himalayan range. 



The geological formation of Kulu in the Himalayahs, and espe- 

 cially of Vazeeri Eussi, is very favourable to the discovery of the 

 precious metals, being composed of Siluriaif rocks, sandstone, shales, 

 clay-slate, micaceous and quartzose schists, with numerous quartz 

 lodes, most of which are highly metalliferous. 



Burrampore is said to have produced from 2,500 to 3,000 lbs. 

 Troy of gold annually. 



That a considerable quantity of lead has been produced in India 

 there can be no doubt, from the quantities the natives used for war 

 purposes as well as sport, and from the many little diggings where- 

 ever any indication appeared. The import of gold and silver into 

 India since 1800 has exceeded the export by 256 millions sterling, 

 and the total amount of gold and silver coined exceeds 231 millions 

 sterling, all of which has been absorbed by India. 



If India is poor, however, in her produce of precious metals, she 

 makes ample amends for it in her boundless wealth in gems. In 

 the Deccan, in the river Pennair, in the lower Kistna, Ellore, and 

 Punnah, in the river Sonar, in Bundelkund, at Sumbulpore on 

 the Mahanuddy, and numbers of other places in India which pro- 

 duced large quantities of diamonds two hundred years ago, have 

 since become so unproductive, or so neglected, that not only the 

 places themselves but the very names are almost unknown to 

 the present inhabitants. 



Garcia al Horto, physician to the Viceroy of Goa, states that 

 diamonds are found in only three or four places. In the province 

 of Besnagar there are two or three rocks that produce them. There 

 is another rock in the Deccan, not far from the territory Imadixa 

 (Imad Shah), etc. These are the stones known by the name 

 of "the diamonds of the old rook," and are brought for sale for 

 Lispor, a town of the Deccan, where there is a noted fair held. The 

 Guzerat merchants buy them and bring them here. 



The richest mines, however, were at Golconda, on the gulf of the 



