292 VREDENBURG ! SKETCH OF BALOCHISTAN DESERT. 



Those syenites and diorites are intrusions of tertiary age ; their min- 

 eral composition is somewhat exceptional. Notwithstanding their 

 acid character and low specific gravity, they contain an abundance of 

 augite and even olivine. The proportion of titanium and phosphorus 

 must be unusually high judging from the number and size of the 

 cystals of sphene and apatite. Near the junction with the sedimen- 

 tary rocks, the syenite frequently contains silicate of copper, not 

 in veins, but disseminated amongst the other minerals in grains 

 of varying size. My observations were not sufficient to decide 

 whether any of these masses would be large enough or especi- 

 ally continuous enough to allow of systematic working; the mode of 

 occurrence in itself renders this improbable. Some men living at 

 Charsar, where there is a little cultivation along a "ka'rez/'' remem- 

 ber having seen the metal extracted some thirty years ago, by a 

 certain Dad Muhamad. This man merely collected out of the talus 

 the pebble.? containing copper ore, which are conspicuous on account 

 of the green colour svhich they assume on weathering. These he 

 pounded in a mortar and extracted the metal in a primitive manner, 

 the smelting of chrysocolla being very easy. 



At Robdt, near Lar Koh, there are some important remains of 

 copper smelting works, in the shape of heaps of slag. The blocks of 

 slag are so numerous that a small fort now ruined was entirely 

 built of them. The only ores which I saw in the neighbourhood are 

 silicate of copper disseminated through the syenites and diorites of 

 Lar Koh, and some veins containing carbonates of copper at Robat 

 Koh and Malik-i-Sian K6h. None of these deposits seem of sufficient 

 importance to have yielded a large quantity of metal, and I did not see 

 any remains of underground workings. It is possible that the ores 

 smelted at Robclt were obtamed from some other spot which I have 

 not visited, situated in the north-western continuation of the ranges in 

 Persia. Khanikoff mentions the existence of large abandoned mines 

 of lead and copper which are so situated. 1 



1 Memoire sur la Partie M^ridionale de l'Asie Centrale, p. 169. 



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