1841.] for the North Wester7i Provinces. 781 



portance give a marked pre-eminence to those of the metallic and car- 

 bonaceous orders. Both of these ought, accordingly, to be illustrated 

 to the greatest extent of detail that circumstances will admit of, and 

 specimens of metals, with their various ores, as also of the diiferent 

 species of coal, are of primary importance. The opportunity thus af- 

 forded of studying with care those external characters which, by ex- 

 perience, have been recognised as the indices of certain properties in 

 the minerals exhibiting them, may frequently enable us to pronounce 

 an immediate opinion as to the economic importance of newly discover- 

 ed members of either of the two orders above alluded to. Specimens of 

 each metal when it occurs native, accompanied by others of its native 

 salts and ores, are, I therefore conceive, essential to the illustration of 

 metallic mineralogy, while specimens of all the varieties of coal, both of 

 such as are considered good and bad, are equally essential to that of car- 

 bonaceous minerals. As subordinate to the former, specimens of the 

 different matrices, whether of rock, gravel, sand, or clay, in which 

 metallic minerals occur may be provided, while in the same relation 

 to the latter, specimens of the rock, that constitute the coal formation, 

 together with their characteristic fossils, would prove most useful. 

 Some farther remarks relative to the illustration of these two im- 

 portant orders will be made in noticing the mechanical details in 

 Metallurgy and Coal Mining; and I would only add as a reason for 

 adverting specially to them at present, that there is abundant reason 

 to believe, the North-Western Provinces of India afford, both in me- 

 tal and coal deposits, fields of the richest character. Metallic minerals 

 have long been known, and wrought for commercial purposes through- 

 out them, and indications of extensive coal beds have very recently 

 been discovered in the Himalayas, so situated, as in the estimation of 

 their discoverer, to be of the highest importance to our lately acquired 

 right of navigating the Indus. This, indeed, is but one of many 

 causes that at present combine to give importance to such researches, 

 and to urge upon us, increased activity in their prosecution. The 

 most powerful of all these stimulating causes will probably be found 

 in the execution, in all likelihood at no distant period, of a grand 

 line of internal navigation, connecting the^remotest limits of these pro- 

 vinces, with the central mart of Indian commerce, and promising, from 

 the scale on which it has been projected; to admit of such increased 



