COPPER. 73 



half an inch or an inch in thickness, iron pyrites with a trace of copper 

 is disseminated. The other is in hornblende schist, and the pyrites 

 here is even less plentiful than in the first. The excavations were not 

 sufficiently promising to induce the miners to continue them beyond a 

 few feet. 



About half a mile to the east of the above locality, and perhaps in 

 the same stratum, copper has been worked rather 

 extensively. The spot is a mile north of, and 

 1,100 feet above Hani Hat, near the head of the Chochi stream. The 

 rock is quartz with some hornblende-schist dipping north at about 

 35°. The copper-bearing stratum averages about 18 inches in thick- 

 ness. Here and there throughout it copper pyrites is disseminate^! in 

 little layers parallel to the bedding. These layers are not solid ore, but^' 

 throughout them the pyrites is more or less thickly disseminated, while 

 elsewhere in the cupriferous stratum the ore is absent or only visible in 

 specks. 



There are six galleries now visible, the roof in five of which has 

 fallen in within 30 feet or less from the mouth. The remaining 

 passage is still open, and extends to a length of over 90 feet. It, 

 like all the others as far as they are open to inspection, is driven from 

 end to end through the same stratum ; and thus, as the passages run 

 more or less nearly with the dip of the beds, they descend at an angle 

 of about 35°. Although there had been an inch of rain a day or two 

 before my visit the mine was quite dry. As the hill-side here is very 

 steep, and the mine is near the watershed between two watercourses, there 

 is naturally but little water to drain in. The mine was worked for a 

 month or two last year, but is now abandoned for the time being. 



There is an old mine several hundred feet above the Mahanaddi on 

 the west side, near the mouth of the Baffupani, 



Mahanaddi. . , n . 



which has been deserted tor many years, and ail the 

 openings have fallen in, so that very little can now be seen. The gangue 

 is hornblende-schist with quartz- and chlorite-schist dipping north 40° 



( 73 ) 



