On the Manufacture of Bar Iron in India. 113 



for less than 9£ a ton. In the whole of the Northern 

 Circars, I do not remember to have ever seen a piece of 

 English bar iron, except at the sea ports ; the supply used 

 in that country being derived from the mountainous region 

 which bounds it on the West. In Southern India, the 

 price of iron is very variable. At Bangalore, the price is 

 1 J rupee for the maund of 25 pounds, while in Coimbatore 

 the price is 2 rupees or 2\ rupees for the same quantity. In 

 the vicinity of both these places, Native smelters have been 

 established for ages, but about Vellore, where the art of 

 smelting has probably been partially lost during the wars 

 of the Carnatic, English iron fetches from 2 rupees to 2\ 

 rupees a maund, and good Native iron is not procurable ; 

 probably because the whole supply which is made is fore- 

 stalled, to make horse-shoes for the cavalry station of Arcot. 

 In consequence, a considerable quantity of English iron is 

 used for smith's work, but further inland than this point, 

 English iron only finds a sale for wheel tyres, for which 

 purpose it can be used cheaper than Native iron. 



25. It is supposed by some that the quality of malleable 

 iron produced is dependent upon the composition of the 

 ore which is used, whence the remarks so commonly met 

 with about steel ore, &c. With the pure ores of the per- 

 oxide and magnetic oxide, this supposition is altogether 

 groundless, for the quality of the iron produced solely de- 

 pends upon the management of the smelting process. Even 

 in the ores which contain sulphur, I conceive that it might 

 be purified completely by roasting, and I have little doubt 

 that excellent iron might be made from the English iron 

 stones, if the oxide of iron was separated from the impuri- 

 ties by washing. 



26. Magnetic iron ore abounds in the Salem district, in 

 Mysore, and in Coimbatore, and may be either picked up in 

 any quantity on the surface at a very trifling expense, or 

 can be separated from the " friable ferruginous granite," by 



Q . 



