(APPENDIX. B.) 



At page 113 a reference has been made to a report bearing on the Iron Ores of 

 the west portion of the Nerbudda valley, submitted by Mr. Oldham to the Go- 

 vernment of India in 1856. This report has never been printed and as it refers 

 generally to the subject discussed in the preceding pages, a few extracts will be 

 here given. 



Mr. Oldham visited the district about Poonassa and Chandghur in April 1856. 

 At that time the attention of the Hon'ble the Court of Directors of the East India 

 Company had been strongly directed to those districts by the glowing terms in 

 which they had been reported on by the officers of the Bombay, Baroda, and 

 Central Indian Eailway, and they had instructed the Bombay Government to des- 

 patch some of their own servants to test the truth of these statements ; and further 

 had authorized that Government, should these reports appear well founded, to pro- 

 ceed at once to establish works for the manufacture of Iron on a sufficient scale to 

 render it generally and commercially useful. 



The reports referred to had been given to the public in No. XIV. of the Selec- 

 tions from the records of the Bombay Government. Of these, the report of Mr. 

 Jacob, who had been deputed by the Eailway Company to examine the Nerbudda 

 valley has the most important bearing on this subject. This report appears to 

 have been drawn up by him in April 1854, at Stirat, in company with Lieut. Col. 

 Kennedy, Mr. Jacob having previously made a rapid examination of the Nerbudda 

 valley, as far to the east as Jubbulpur. During that visit he had seen most of the 

 localities known to yield Iron and Coal, and then unhesitatingly pronounced in 

 favor of Poonassah and its neighbourhood as the most promising locality for the 

 establishment of Iron works, an immediate commencement of which he urgently 

 recommended. 



" Neglecting for the present Mr. Jacob's reasons for selecting Poonassah, a town 

 on the south side of the river, and at a distance of 12 to 14 miles from the Ore 

 pits, as the site of his proposed works, I will briefly describe the circumstances under 

 which the Ore occurs-" 



" Iron Ore is here found in two forms, 1st, as a gravel or detritus consisting of 

 loose rounded lumps of partially decomposed heematitic Iron, which forms irregu- 

 lar beds accumulated in the hollows or depressions of the surface, and 2ndly, as -a 

 distinct bed or vein of similar ore, in a solid and undecomposed state. The latter 

 Mr. Jacob did not apparently see. The gravel-like deposits of ore are in several 

 places. Of these, one of the principal is at Chandgurh to which Mr. Jacob refers. 

 Although called the Chandgurh deposit, it is nearly 3 miles from the village of that 

 name. It covers an area of probably altogether one quarter of a mile square, the 

 thickness within that area varying from four or five feet to a mere scattering of loose 

 pebbles over the surface. Its limits are well marked and well known, being con- 

 fined by a low broken range of small hills in which no traces of this ore occur. 

 Another of these deposits of ore in loose lumps occurs about six or eight miles 

 north and east of these Chanclgiirh pits, near to the small villages of Bamha and 



