Batt—On Some Indian Brass Castings 273 
XLIII.—On Some Brass Castines oF Inpran Manuracturr. By 
Professor V. Batt, M.A., F.R.S., F.G.S. 
[Read, January 22, 1883.] 
THE objects now exhibited, though in themselves of rude design, bear 
testimony to the possession by those who made them of a considerable 
degree of skill in the working of metals. Having been made for me, 
I am acquainted with the circumstances of their manufacture; and 
a statement of these, together with some general remarks upon the 
metallurgical processes which are practised by the inhabitants of 
India, should, I think, prove not unacceptable to the Members of the 
Academy, who possess in their Museum so many examples of the pro- 
ductions of the pre-historic metallurgists of this country. 
By way of preface, I propose to give avery brief sketch of the 
methods adopted by the natives of India for the extraction of metals 
from their ores, and their subsequent treatment. Many of these 
methods, so far as we know, not only date back to the earliest periods 
of which there is any record, but they were probably first invented 
at some vastly more remote epoch. 
Scarcely without an exception, each of these metallurgical pro- 
cesses involves an expenditure of manual labour and time which are 
quite disproportionate to the results, and hence it is that imported 
metals, manufactured in Europe, can undersell the indigenous produc- 
tions of India. The effect of this competition, throughout wide 
regions, has been to cause the native miners and smelters to adopt 
new modes of obtaiming their livelihood; but to change his trade is 
more difficult for an inhabitant of India, owing to the influence of 
caste, than it is for an artizan of any other country—the consequence 
being, that these industries are in some cases kept alive by a struggle 
of the most severe character, where the reward of unending labour is 
a state of chronic indigence, scarcely removed from one of famine. 
It needs no gift of prophecy, therefore, to foresee the extinction of 
these arts at a not distant period, which in itself affords a strong reason 
for describing them while the materials for doing so are still avail- 
able. By some writers it has been remarked contemptuously, that 
though the native artizans possess the art, they know nothing of the 
science of these operations. That such is the case is true; but it is 
also true of many crafts in Europe. The application of scientific 
guidance is a modern growth, and it has been left to modern chemists 
to explain the rationale of processes, which discovered first by rule of 
thumb, have been blindly followed for many centuries. 
