1840.] Museum of Economic Geology of India. 975 



new and old methods of reducing zinc from its ores. Other mineral 

 substances employed in the arts and manufactures will also be includ- 

 ed, such as those illustrative of porcelain, common earthenware, pot- 

 tery, fire bricks, and other manufactures from clays and their com- 

 pounds, and of metallic oxides and earths employed as pigments, 

 showing the mode in which they may be usefully and permanently 

 associated with each other ; as well as a series showing the important 

 manufacture of glass. 



In the agricultural section, specimens of Indian soils and subsoils, 

 or subjacent rocks, will be collected, with information of the mode of 

 treatment and usual produce of the land, together with the conditions 

 of exposure and meteorological influences to which it is subject. By 

 analyzing such specimens, the connection of agricultural products with 

 the chemical and physical properties of the soil, as well the mineral 

 and vegetable substances most fitted for increasing the fertility of the 

 land, will be ascertained ; and the results being compared with others 

 similarly obtained in this, or in other countries,* correct principles will 

 be established, either for the introduction of new products of cultiva- 

 tion, or for the improvement of those already existing. The substra- 

 tum of soils being generally an element in their relative fertility, an in- 

 spection of these alone would lead to suggestions of much value to the 

 cultivator, and to a knowledge of the geological character of the upper 

 surface of the country from which they may be taken. 



Another section will comprise stones, slates, marbles, porphyries, 

 ornamental granites, and other building materials, as mortars, cements, 

 and other artificial compounds, applicable to architectural and engi- 

 neering purposes. 



A focus will thus be presented, to concentrate all information relating 

 to the Economic Geology of India, and it is considered that a collec- 

 tion of natural products, such as it will contain, may serve to point out 

 localities which would be worthy of attention ; and by exciting the in- 



* We have learnt, while this Memorandum is passing through the press, that a far 

 wider interest is taken at home in the improvement of India in connection with its 

 agriculture, then has ever heretofore been the case. Our acting Curator, Mr. Pidding- 

 ton, having requested Mr. Stikeman the Secretary to the East India and China Asso- 

 ciation to procure for him''some sugar soils from the West Indies, for comparative an- 

 alysis with those of India, the Mauritius, &c. Mr. Stikeman applied to Lord John Rus- 

 sell, who, upon the recommendation of Sir John Cam Hobhouse, has kindly obtained an 

 assortment of soils from the West Indies, and their arrival here is daily expected.— Ed. 



