4 Report on the Copper Ores of the Deoghur Mines. [No. 8. 



which I request may be deemed only a preliminary one, and made as a 

 matter of duty that Government may be properly informed. 



2. You will doubtless have remarked, Sir, in the report of Captain 

 Sherwill to Captain Thuillier, that the former officer states that he had 

 sent me a box of the ores, and I found upon the close mineralogical 

 examination which such specimens require, that there was a consider- 

 able number of varieties, all of which had to be carefully classed and 

 tested before their nature could be duly pronounced upon ; many of 

 them very small, and requiring to be repeatedly examined. To be 

 brief, I may say that I have been most assiduously employed with them 

 to enable me to give a complete report and that I have performed 

 upwards of 150 examinations more or less complex upon about 20 

 species and varieties of these ores and their matrix, and that I am yet 

 pursuing these, and have to repeat some when I can obtain more 

 specimens before I feel safely assured of my results. You are, Sir, no 

 doubt aware of the patient and vigilant research which such matters 

 require that nothing may be passed over. 



3. The results then so far as I can yet pronounce with safety is 

 first that (8) eight of these ores contain more or less of silver, some 

 of them traces only ; others a promising proportion, but no estimate 

 of the quantity can be made till good supplies of the ores are obtained. 

 Mr. Dodd has, I observe, stated that the lead ore contains about 50 

 oz. of silver to the ton, in his report. 



4. Next I had requested Captain Sherwill always to send down all 

 that was about, or near to, any thing he thought of value, and this he 

 has faithfully done on this occasion, and amongst the mere rubbish 

 I have had the satisfaction to discover what I have been in fact looking 

 to find for some twenty years in India and which I have examined 

 perhaps 50 or 100 specimens from various parts of India in hopes of 

 meeting with, but hitherto without success, till I have at length found 

 it in the rubbish, or what the Cornish miners would call the Gossan of 

 the Deoghur mines. I some years ago in the Journal of the Asiatic 

 Society Vol. IX. p. 1144 in my report on the Museum of Economic 

 Geology, then about to be established, announced that this mineral 

 probably existed in India in the following words. 



" I mention particularly here, the Mexican and Peruvian silver ores, 

 because some of them would from their earthy appearance, and the 



