142 J. Cockburn — Haematite drawings. [Sept., 



entire drawing seems to have been stained into the rock by oxidation. 

 All sandstones contain minute quantities of iron, and the pigment being 

 itself an oxide of iron has readily communicated a colour of the nature of 

 a rust stain even to the hard quartzitic rock. The chemical action of the 

 atmosphere has therefore apparently had in the first instance a preser- 

 vative effect on these drawings. 



Without going to the length of a recent author who describes the 

 Mirzapore cave drawings as executed with a " ferruginous pigment 

 which resists indefinitely the ravages of time," (Provincial Gazette, Mirza- 

 pore District, p. 114,) there can be no reasonable doubt that they are 

 at least, say for argument, over a century old ; and if capable of resisting 

 the weather for this apparently unreasonable time, why not for seven cen- 

 turies. Kymore sandstone of the inferior varieties weathers with extreme 

 rapidity. I recently had occasion to visit the grave of a friend buried in 

 1879 at Allahabad, and the initials on the headstone were so much eroded 

 as to be scarcely recognisable though they had been carved to the depth 

 of a quarter of an inch. 



Judging from the polish retained by the sandstone of the Bharut 

 railing, 2,000 years old and made of a much softer sandstone, the cave 

 quartzite of which a specimen is sent would not loose the thousandth 

 part of an inch in double the time.* 



However any estimate of the age of the drawings based on their 

 state of preservation alone would, in our ignorance of the time required 

 for such changes, be utterly worthless. 



My conclusions were drawn first from the presence of locally extinct 

 mammalia which implied that considerable changes had taken place in 

 the natural features of the country. 



2ndly. From due appreciation of the fact that the forms of the 

 weapons represented and the methods of using them were evidence in 

 favour of a very rude state of culture such as must have existed a con- 

 siderable time ago. 



3rdly. From the existence of ancient symbols and an apparently 

 ancient form of writing in a similarly good state of preservation. 



This writing bears much resemblance to the so-called shell writing. 

 All the specimens copied are with Dr. Rajendra Lala Mitra who has 

 not hitherto been able to give the smallest clue to their age or character. 



Mr. Beglar who has seen very similar writing at the Chetileckna 

 rock near Ramgurh, and elsewhere, is inclined to attribute what he saw 

 to the seventh century. 



* An inscription on a slab let into the Mou Kalian bridge near Bedjeygurh 

 which is only 120 years old and presumably of local soft sandstone is extremely 

 weathered and eaten into. 



