62 KING : COASTAL REGION OF THE GODAVARI DISTRICT. 



ores, or such as are exposed to weathering or detrital influences, and these 

 are the red and brown peroxides in manageable fragments, with, often 

 small cores of the grey or micaceous iron ore. 



The places where I have noticed iron furnaces are in the sandstone 

 region between the Yera-Kalwa and Tammile'r rivers, or in the Pentlam 

 patch of Bijahmundry and other sandstones near Nullacherla, and 

 further north at Komera in the Tripati scarps. There are also others 

 in the Nuzvid area, at Bimakapeta and Somavaram; and Heyne 

 describes another locality at Latchmipuram in the Pungadi patch of 

 sandstones. 



The Pentlam area. — Some of the beds in this field are, as already 

 noticed, highly ferruginous and much banded with clay-ironstone con- 

 cretions, &c, and the debris of these, as well as the beds themselves, 

 are worked and rudely smelted at Marillamudi, Jaganatgudem, and 

 Dobcherla. At the first place the ore used is a dark-brown and purple 

 clay-ironstone, which occurs in small lumps in a lateritoid gravel on the 

 south side of the • village at a depth of about 1 5 feet, whence they are 

 dug up by the people from shafts, at the bottom of which they grub 

 about for a few feet. The furnaces of this part of the country are 

 somewhat different from those I have seen in Southern India, in so far 

 as they are not complete truncate cones, but only half completed, so 

 that one side of the interior chamber is left open when the furnace is 

 not in use. At every smelting, this open side of the chamber is closed 

 up- by a thin slightly-curved wall of clay plates or slabs luted together 

 with wet clay; this side of the furnace being flat, while all round 

 the bed of the chamber there is a backing of 2 to 3 feet. A conical 

 chimney of about a foot in length is placed over the top of the chamber, 

 and on this again is placed a broken half of a country chatty or earthen- 

 ware pot, through which a hole has been broken, so as to act partly as 

 a funnel for the readier throwing in of the ore and fuel. At one 

 side of the furnace there is a hollow having a small communication 

 with the floor of the furnace, and through this the slag or cinder is 

 drawn off from time to time. After the smelting the wall is broken 

 ( 256 ) 



