1850.] Note on the Zinc Mines of Jawar. 213 



are undoubtedly those of Jawar. They are incidentally mentioned by 

 Captain Tod in his Rajasthan, and are stated to have yielded a net 

 revenue of Rs. 220,000 a year. They became closed during the 

 great famine, which devastated western India in A. D. 1812-13, dur- 

 ing which the miners, dependant on the surrounding country for food, 

 were obliged to leave a locality situated in the heart of the Bheel coun- 

 try, whose starving population seized all the grain intended for the 

 city of Jawar. The government of Udypura, too weak to defend 

 itself, and at the time oppressed by the Mahrattas and other free- 

 booters, failed to forward the requisite assistance, and the town suffered 

 the same fate as that of many other places. 



3rd. Jawar lies half way between Kherwara and Udypura, or 

 some 25 miles due south of the latter place. It is situated in an irre- 

 gular valley surrounded by hills rising to a height of 1000 to 1500 

 feet, clothed with rich verdure to their summits, and overlooking an 

 irregular-shaped plain covered over for a space of 5 or 6 square miles, 

 with the monuments of former wealth and importance. Many of these 

 ruins consist of ancient buildings and temples on hills rising in several 

 instances to the height of upwards of a hundred feet, and composed 

 entirely of ashes, which alone fully attest the distant period from 

 which the mines must have been worked. The small river Thiri 

 flows through the plain. It has been in one place bunded up with a 

 masonry bund now in ruins, the excellence of which is attested by the 

 age of the temples built hundreds of years ago on the alluvium of the 

 lake that must have formerly formed an extensive and lovely sheet of 

 water. The chief hill which was used for mining has been worked 

 into a mass of excavations, from which myriads of bats and a stray bear 

 now and then serve to startle the incautious intruders. 



4th. It is some 6 years since I first visited Jawar, and it then 

 occured to me to induce work-people to re-open the mines, but I was 

 unable to procure specimens of the ores from the jealousy of the then 

 Minister of Udypura, as to my intentions in bringing these hidden 

 treasures to light. On a subsequent occasion about 2 years ago, I pro- 

 posed to the present Maha Rana of Udypura, the expediency of open- 

 ing the mines ; he appeared very anxious to do so, and authorized me 

 to obtain miners from Ajmere. Having addressed Lieut. -Col. Dixon 

 on the subject, that officer with great kindness entered fully into my 



2 F 



