1866.] the Western Himalaya and Afghan Mountains. 189 
considerable, and that a large quantity of iron could be obtained by 
increasing the mines, and adopting better furnaces with a blast worked 
by water-power, windmill or horse-power; but the miners and other 
inhabitants of the villages take great care not to mention to the 
Maharajah’s officials any valuable deposit of ore which may be 
worked with advantage ; they pretend that the Maharajah takes away 
all the iron for his arsenal and pays nothing for it, and that, when 
a supply of any ore is discovered near a village, the inhabitants have 
to work it by corvées, so that the discovery of a vein of valuable 
mineral is a calamity to the people of the neighbourhood. But this 
is probably untrue in many ways: the iron they supply is, as I have 
said before, taken in lieu of taxes; the care with which many of 
the holes are concealed with rubbish and branches, induces me to 
believe that a good deal of iron is smelted in a contraband way; and 
last but not least, making a secret of mineral wealth is quite consistent 
with the love of hoarding riches so prevalent amongst natives. The 
same concealment of ores is now going on in Huzara, where a little 
iron is known to exist, and where the reason of the Kashmir miners 
would certainly not avail; and it is reported by the geological sur- 
yveyors of the Ranigunj coal-field that it is impossible to believe 
negative reports from natives. In Kashmir, moreover, the Maha- 
rajah’s government entertain the same childish fear, lest the mineral 
wealth of the country should become known, and I well remember 
with what silly recommendations of secrecy I was shown by one of 
the Maharajah’s servants a small piece of iron pyrites of the most 
insignificant value. 
50. The rocks we have described form the Kothair bed (of 
Carboniferous limestone ?). They are a succession of courses of lime- 
stone, shales of a dark reddish or ochrous colour, dark slates and 
calcareous sandstones. I am sorry I cannot give a section, but the 
following remarks will, in a way, supply its want. 
The limestones are of two descriptions, viz. : some coarse and very 
sandy, indeed so much so, that when the carbonate of lime is removed 
by water charged with peroxide of iron, a brownish sandstone is 
left ; it contains no fossils, and passes gradually into a rough grey 
sandstone with a calcareous cement. The other variety of limestone is 
argillaceous, and passes into calcareous slate; it is dark blue or even 
