the Eastern Portion of the Basaltic District of India. 547 



phous masses of quartz. The strata are much broken up and elevated, so that the dip and direc- 

 tion are in no two places the same, and bear no relation to the mountains to the north. 



Manufacture, ^c. — The mines are mere holes dug through the thin granitic soil, and the ore is de- 

 tached without difficulty by small iron crow-bars. It is then collected and broken on projecting 

 masses of granite or quartz by means of a conical-shaped fragment of compact greenstone; but 

 when too hard to yield to this simple instrument, it is previously roasted. The sand thus pro- 

 cured is washed in shelving depressions dug near a tank, and the heavier parts, separated by this 

 process, are exactly similar to Voysey's specimens of the iron-sand used in the manufacture of 

 Damascus steel at Kona-Sumoondrum, in the same neighbourhood ; but from his published papers, 

 it does not appear that he had seen the rock from which they were derived. In other respects, 

 all the information I could procure, accurately corresponds with that given in his interesting paper*. 

 The ore is then smelted with charcoal in small furnaces, which have often been described. I did 

 not see any flux used ; but, although I watched the whole process, from the digging of the ore till 

 it was formed into bars, I will not assert that none was employed. The iron has the remarkable 

 property of being obtained at once in a perfectly tough and malleable state, requiring none of the 

 complicated processes to which English iron must be subjected, previous to its being brought into 

 that state. Mr. Wilkinson, who has investigated the history of Indian steels with much scientific 

 and practical skill, did me the favour to submit to experiment a specimen of this iron as it came 

 from the furnace. He found it to be extremely good and tough, and considered it superior to any 

 English iron, and even to the best descriptions of Swedish. The Persian merchants, who frequent 

 the iron-furnaces of Kona-Sumoondrum, are aware of the superiority of this iron, and informed 

 Dr. Voysey, that in Persia they had in vain endeavoured to imftate the steel formed from it ; a 

 failure which could be ascribed only to the difference of the materials used, as the whole process 

 of the conversion into steel was conducted under their own superintendence. It is also probable, 

 that there are few places in India where an ore of equal value is so easily procured ; otherwise its 

 distant inland situation, in a difficult and unsettled country, would not have retained a reputation 

 for so many ages. In the manufacture of the best steel three-fifths of this iron is used ; the other 

 two-fifths being obtained from the Indoor district, where the ore appears to be a peroxide. It is 

 evident, that if the beautiful water of the Damascus blades is derived from the crystallization of the 

 steel, the use of two very different varieties of iron, one of which has been ascertained to be of 

 such admirable quality, must have an important influence on the appearance and quality of the 

 manufacture. 



As these mines afford a boundless supply of ore easily wrought, and are situated in the neigh- 

 bourhood of vast forests, and near a river navigable for boats during part of the year, it is pro- 

 bable, that at no distant period, when the native government has undergone some amelioi-ation, iron 

 may become an important article of commerce. On this account, and because, although much has 

 been written regarding Indian steel, nothing has yet been brought prominently forward regarding 

 the finer kinds of iron ore with which that country abounds, I will make a few additional obser- 

 vations regarding them. 



Dr. Heyne has accurately described the manufacture of iron in the Carnatic, to the south of 

 the Pennar river, and he states that it is, when first smelted, extremely brittle, requiring several 

 operations to bring it into a malleable state. I possess specimens of two varieties of ore used in the 

 district in which he observed the processes, and where I have myself seen them carried on. The 

 one, an iron sand, collected in the beds of rivers, consists of the protoxide, mixed with much of 

 the peroxide ; the other, a red schist, is almost entirely composed of red oxide, but in the centre 



* Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, vol. i., p. 245. 

 VOL. V. SECOND SERIES. 4 B 



