274 APPENDIX. 



" Tliere appear to me to be excessively crude notions in the minds of some 

 persons as to the supply of fuel required for such purposes." "Unlimited and dense 

 jungle," " exhaustless supply of wood" &c. &c, are terms constantly used without 

 much examination of the facts. I can only say, that I have now seen much of 

 the densest jungle and most heavily wooded parts of India, in the Terai, in the 

 N. Eastern frontier &c, and I have never seen any place, which, without the 

 strictest conservancy and limitation of supply, could have supplied a couple of 

 blast furnaces for a couple of years, within a circle of 8 to 10 miles from these 

 places. Because the present limited demand does not appear to exhaust or in some 

 places to materially affect the supply, it is hastily concluded that the increas- 

 ed demand might be met also, without considering what the ratio of increase 

 would be." 



" Further, for any improved processes of manufacture this demand must and 

 will become concentrated, instead of being, as at present, scattered over an immense 

 area. Now each person sets up his furnace wherever circumstances are favorable, 

 and works on until his fuel or his ore becomes exhausted or too costly to be profita- 

 ble to work, he then removes ; and this is no very costly process, when 6 or 8 rupees 

 will pay for the whole of his plant?' 



" To enter into more detail, let us take the district now under consideration. 

 There are at present in " blast" in this district (not including those supplied from 

 Burwye and Kautcot on the west) about 40 small country furnaces. Of these, 

 the furthest apart are in one direction about 22 miles, in another direction about 

 14, giving an area for the supply of fuel of about 300 square miles ; or remembering 

 that the supply of the most distant furnaces is derived from all sides, of about 350 

 square miles in all. The facts I have given above shew veiy clearly that this 

 area only just meets the demand upon it, at present existing." 



" The outturn of each of these furnaces, supposing them to work steadily for 

 25 days in the month, is not more than 20 maunds of raw iron, or for the entire 

 number (40) not more than 800 maunds, or per week 200 maunds equal to 7? tons ! 

 "Now it would be a very small work which would turn out 100 tons of raw iron 

 per week, or which would, with the same ratio of consumption as now exists, 

 require very nearly 14 times the supply of fuel now used. Again, these native 

 furnaces never, at the best, work for more than 7 months in the year, while any 

 improved system of manufacture should necessarily be constant. This would of 

 course add to the demand in the proportion of 12 to 7 about three-fourths more 

 than is stated above, or in all a supply of fuel fully 24 times that now existing 

 would be required. It is also obvious that however useful this supply may be, scat- 

 tered over its area of 350 square miles, whde the demand is equally scattered, a 

 large portion of this would be too expensive to bring to any one spot profit- 

 ably." 



" This calculation is, as I have stated, based on the assumption that the ratio 

 of fuel consumed to the metal produced should be the same as now is the case. 

 I am fully aware however that the present consumption is extremely wasteful, 



