78 KING : NELLORE PORTION OF THE CARNATIC. 



not prepared to encourage the hopeless view generally taken of the 

 evidences that have been brought to light by the old workers. In 

 my experience of native workings, I have always found, with the 

 exception of the old gold workings in Wynad, where the men had to 

 deal with an undulating country easily drained, that the mines have 

 never been carried to any depth nor to any extent, as may be easily 

 conceived where the means of getting rid of water, or the supplying 

 of air, were not available. I do not mean to urge the oft — in 

 difficulty or despair — suggested necessity for going deeper in mines to 

 obtain a better result, though of course the wealth may be at a great 

 depth ; but I question whether any of these old native mines are ever 

 beyond 60 feet in depth, or that the galleries run more than three times 

 that length. Again, the fact of the place having been tried under 

 European hands and at a great expenditure of money without success is 

 poor evidence of the condition of a mining region in India, for it is even 

 now difficult to obtain competent and steady hands, or even, if they be 

 competent, to guard them against the evil and enervating effects of 

 the climate, and it is above all difficult to arrange for the effective 

 administration of such work. From all I could ever learn of the working 

 of the Nellore mines, these obstacles to progress seem to have occurred in 

 the most exemplary manner. The money seems to have been at hand ; but 

 neither Colonel Ouchterlony nor his brother James, nor Messrs. Hart and 

 Simpson seem to have been capable of carrying on or organising the 

 administrative part of the affair; while solitude, sickness, and drunkenness 

 were too much for the miners. 



The localities appear to be principally within the outlying zemindari 

 lands of Kalahasti. Those visited by Mr. Oldham are at and in the 

 Occurrence of this ore neighbourhood of Garimanipenta (Gunnipenta) on 

 at Garimanipenta. ^he nor thern edge of the sheet, and within some 



24< miles of the western hills. The specimens he produced were principally 

 copper glance in irregular masses, with strings of malachite occurring 

 in massive earthy trap and in hornblende schists. They were all from 

 the heaps of debris thrown out of the excavations which had been made 

 near the village. The traps appear to occur as intrusive sheets running 

 ( 186 ) 



