JOURNAL 



OF THE 



ASIATIC SOCIETY, 



No. III.— 1855. 



Report on the Kooloo Iron Mines and on a portion oftlie Mannihum 

 valley. — By M. Marcadietj. (Communicated by the Government 

 of India.*) 



Before my arrival in Kooloo, the information I had received of the 

 mineral resources that this country appeared to offer, embraced 

 nothing of its iron mines ; their existence was completely unknown. 

 The information was confined to the fabulous recitals of the Manni- 

 kurn thermal waters, and to the existence of sulphurets of iron and 

 lead within this same valley. Arrived on the spot, at the first 

 sight of a rock from Futteepore, I saw directly, and ascertained 

 by experiments, that it contained magnetic oxide of iron. This fact 

 acquired, led me to the examination of the soil, which entirely con- 

 firmed it. 



A second mine of oligist iron, was discovered thus ; while con- 

 versing with Captain Hay on the probability of meeting with oligist 

 iron in the quartz; mountains in the vicinity of the thermal springs 

 of Mannikurn, it occurred to him, to make use of his just authority 

 to question the natives. The influence that he exercises over them, 

 led to the best results, for one of them soon brought us a block of 

 badly smelted iron and some specimens of the mineral metal, ex- 

 tracted clandestinely from a neighbouring mountain. 



The first of these mines, the magnetic iron ore, is situated near 



* Some pains have been taken to improve the composition of this report, which 

 should rather have been drawn up in French and then translated. Occasionally 

 passages have been omitted where there were doubts of the writer's meaning. — Eo. 



No. LXXIV.— New Series. Vol. XXIV, 2 c 



