86 KING : NELLORE PORTION OF THE CARNATIC. 



and long resident in the district, supplied further information for this 

 Manual, of which the following is an extract :— 



" The ore is rich in metal, some specimens having yielded 75 per 

 cent., but imbedded in a very hard matrix difficult to be worked. It is 

 found in large and small masses of quatrz, and, so far as I have been 

 informed, no continuous vein has ever been discovered. All the speci- 

 mens that I have seen have had a more or less rounded surface, indicat- 

 ing their having been subjected to the action of water, and rolled 

 possibly in former times from a considerable distance. 



" Deceived by the abundance of the ore lying on or near the surface 

 and by old excavations, and the traditions of natives that at some 

 former period copper mines had been worked, several enterprising in- 

 dividuals, during the first half of the present century, expended a great 

 deal of money in preliminary mining operations, but do not seem to 

 have carried them on a very extensive scalo, or to have brought much 

 scientific knowledge to bear upon them. Mr. Ashton, Captain Kerr, 

 and Mr. Fondclair, I believe ruined themselves in their vain search, 

 and Mr. Hart at a later date expended upwards of a lakh of rupees 

 with a similar result. Mr. James Oucbterlony, in or about the year 1840, 

 under the superintendence of an experienced Cornish miner, whom he 

 brought out to the country for the purpose, sank one or more shafts 

 near the river at Gurmanipenta, but he met with no more success than 

 his predecessors. Mr. Ouchterlony's brother (the late Colonel Ouch- 

 terlony, of the Madras Engineers) in 1841 or 1842 printed for private 

 circulation a pamphlet, illustrated by drawings of various specimens of 

 ore that have been found. In it he gave a detailed account of what 

 had been done by his brother and his predecessors, and I believe he 

 arrived at the conclusion that further explorations would be a vain waste 

 of money and inevitably lead to disappointment." 



( 194 ) 



