290 Report on the Tin Ground of Mergui. [No. 124. 



than by people accustomed to work with the flat conical-shaped troughs 

 before described. The quantity obtainable, would fully repay the em- 

 ployment of men in this operation. 



The tin, as produced by the washers, should be placed on slop- 

 ing boards, and water conducted over it from a trough pierced with 

 holes for the purpose, in order to get rid of foreign particles ; and it 

 would then, after being finely pounded, be ready for smelting. Of all 

 metals tin is in this process the least troublesome, after the ore is freed 

 from the earthy and silicious particles with which in other countries it 

 is often mixed. 



The crystallized form in which it here occurs, renders its separation 

 extremely easy, and the whole processes of stamping and dressing, 

 which in England are tedious and expensive, can thus be dispensed 

 with. No arsenic or sulphur being mixed with the ore, it need not be 

 roasted before it is placed in the smelting furnace. 



It would thus appear that the tin of the Mergui province offers 

 no ordinary inducement to the outlay of capital, without much of 

 the risk, uncertainty, and large previous outlay usually attending mining 

 adventures. 



G. B. Tremenheere, Capt. 

 Superintendent of Forests, Tenasserim Provinces. 



Errata in the printed Report. 



Page 846, line 10, et passim, for Thengdon, read Thengdaw. 



— 848, ,, 16, for Pak chum, read Pak chan. 



— 849, ,, 17, for Loundoungin, read Londamgia. 



— 849, ,, 18, for Wolfran, read Wolfram. 



— 850, ,, 33, for 63-176 grains, read 6 oz. 176 grains. 



— 851, ,, 14, for Kohan, read Kahan. 



On the Cotton called " Nurma," in Guzerat. By A. Burn, Esq., Super- 

 intendent of Cotton Cultivation, fin reply to Mr. Piddington's Que- 

 ries.J Communicated from the Secretariat, General Department. 



The plant yielding what is called Nurmah cotton in this part of 

 the country, is the same as is described by Dr. J. F. Royle as Glossy- 

 pium Arborium. It is to be found growing wild, I believe in different 

 parts of India, and from some experiments I made when at Kaira, I 

 have very little doubt that it will be found to be the original stock from 

 whence the Barbadoes, Bourbon, Egyptian, and Sea Island varieties have 

 originally sprung, 



It grows in every kind of soil that is met with in Guzerat. But 

 it obtains the greatest perfection in light sandy soils, to which a little 

 old cow- dung manure has been added, and where it can have a proper 

 drainage, in the black clayey soil, known as " the cotton soil" of the 

 indigenous G. herbaceum ; it grows, but with diminished vigour in pro- 



