92 ball: geology of the rajmehal hills. 



being necessary to produce a ton of iron, and the correspondingly smaller quantities of 

 kunkur and coal requisite. Thus with the Damra ore— 



3 tons of ore at say 

 3 „ of coal 



1 ton of kunkur 



7 23 



7 tons of raw material would be a very liberal estimate. With Eaniganj ore— 



Rs. As. P. Es. As. P. 



3J tons of ore at say ... ... ... 1 4 a ton 4 6 



3£ „ of coal ... ... ... 3 „ 10 8 



2 „ of kunkur ... ... ...2 0,, 4 



Es. 



As. 



P. Es. As. 



P. 



1 



4 



a ton 3 12 







6 







„ 18 







1 



4^ 



„ 14 







18 14 



In each of the above estimates I have accepted kunkur as the flux* and assumed 

 that equal quantities of coal are necessary. The coal is charged at Es. 6-0-0 a ton at 

 Mullarpore, but the kunkur only at Ee. 1-4-0 instead of Es. 2. A large demand for 

 lime exists and is increasing in the Eaniganj field, and therefore the price of kunkur 

 is computed at Es. 2. 



16. For boilers there would be a large consumption of coal. 



Mr. Hughes' remarks on charcoal I here reproduce in full, as they 

 would apply, mutatis mutandis, to many other parts of India ; they are, 

 therefore, of general interest :— 



The question as to the supply of charcoal available per annum within a radius of 

 ten to fifteen miles of Mullarpore was pressed very strongly upon me. It is impossible 

 to give reliable information without going over the district much more closely than 

 I did. Estimates can be made of the amount of the forest land that would have to 

 be leased to supply charcoal enough to smelt a given number of tons of ore ; but what 

 the amount of forest land is around Mullarpore is not an easy question to answer 

 definitely. I never saw anything that I could conscientiously call a forest, although 

 it appears that I walked through one near Kushtgarh. It seems that forests formerly 

 existed near Ganpur, for Mr. Blanford mentions that Messrs. Mackey and Co. leased 

 woods at Ganpur of about 9,600 bigahs (3 bigahs = 1 acre). They are not in exist- 

 ence now. In the course of ten or fifteen years careful conservation would produce 

 a change, and enough charcoal might then be procured for the manufacture of 150 to 

 200 tons of pig-iron a month. 



Each ton of iron produced would require about li tons of charcoal, assuming ore 

 to contain 46 per cent, iron, and kunkur 66 per cent, carbonate of lime, so that 200 tons 

 of iron per mensem or 2,400 tons per annum would require 3,600 tons of charcoal. 



* Since this was written, the Iron Company in the Raniganj area have made use of lime 

 from a source other than kunkur, and the comparison does not, therefore, hold good. — V, B. 



( 246 ) 



