ECONOMIC RESOURCES. 87 



Fire clays occur in several parts of the district, but their extent and 

 quality can only be determined by experimental enquiries, such as 

 there has, as yet, been no opportunity of carrying out. 



IRON. 



Although the last to be mentioned in this enumeration, iron is by no 



means the least useful of the economic products of the Hajmehal hills. 



The iron ores are of several different ages, the oldest being found in 



the metamorphic rocks, where it occurs chiefly in the form of magnetic 



oxide, as at Ishapur near Namgulia. Within our limit there is no large 



or important deposit of this ore. Next, the sandstones, both of Damuda 



and Mahadeva age, contain veins and nests of 

 Iron ore in sandstones. 



brown haematite of small extent. It is from this 



source that the ore used by the race of iron-smelters, locally called Kols, 

 is obtained. The amount of iron manufactured by these people is in- 

 considerable. Their furnaces are constructed on the ordinary well- 

 known rude principle which is found with slight local modifications in 

 all parts of the hilly districts of Bengal and Orissa. 



In the basaltic trap, nests, sometimes of considerable extent, of a 

 tolerably pure brown haematite, are occasionally met with. Sometimes 

 layers of a pisolitic iron ore occur also interbedded with the trap,* and 

 again in some parts of the area we find an oxide of iron, partly earthy, 

 partly magnetic, which occurs in thin seams disseminated among, and 

 spreading in an entangled manner through, the soapy trappean clay- 

 stone. 



In very intimate connection with these trappean sources of iron 

 occurs the laterite, and in fact, as has already been pointed out, the base 

 beds of the laterite appear to have derived their iron chiefly from these 

 sources. 



* This is lithologically similar to the ' Bohnera' of German lithologists. 



( 241 ) 



