280 Notes upon the Geology of the Bajmahal Hills. [No. 3. 



disseminated, and investing the grains of the rock, and also forming 

 thin coatings on the fissures and joints. The so-called laterite of 

 these hills, (see above) is also in one or two places used as a source 

 of the iron, but the other is preferred. 



The large and widely spread heaps of scoria and slag, the remains 

 of former workings, evidence the extent to which this smelting of 

 iron has been formerly carried on, and this in many places where 

 no trace of such furnaces now exist, and where no tradition of their 

 former existence can be discovered. 



The crude or cutcha iron, produced, as is ordinarily the case, in 

 small hemispherical lumps, or blooms, is either used for the supply 

 of the local workmen, who employ it in the manufacture of the few 

 agricultural implements required in the district, or it is sold to 

 dealers who carry it away to Jungypore, Moorshedabad, and other 

 marts. The iron is all wrought by Kols, who live quite distinct 

 from the Sontals, or the hill men, and constantly migrate in pursuit 

 of their labour. The operations are carried on in these hills on 

 the smallest scale, and with nothing approaching to the regularity 

 of system which characterizes the* same manufacture in the large 

 iron working villages of the adjoining district of Beerbhoom. Nor is 

 there, I think, any prospect of this manufacture being so extended, 

 as to become available for the supply of any large demand. The ore 

 is too much scattered over a great area, ever to suffice for operations 

 on a large scale. At Sukri-gully, which had been indicated as a 

 locality favourable for the manufacture of iron, not even this rude, 

 and limited native system of operations is carried on. And there 

 does not appear the slightest ground for supposing that there exist 

 in that vicinity conditions favourable for such a manufacture. 



But while satisfied that there is no prospect of obtaining from this 

 or the immediately adjoining districts any large supply of cast-iron 

 or of iron adapted for large works, I am equally certain that consi- 

 derable improvements could be made on the present rude system of 

 working ; still keeping in view the production of malleable iron by 

 a single process, as at present. A single and very simple improve- 

 ment in the mode of expressing the large amount of slag, which comes 

 from the hearth mixed up with the spongy metallic mass, would in 

 itself add much to the value of the iron ; and coincidently with this 



