1866.] the Western Himalaya and Afghan Mountains. 189 



considerable, and that a large quantity of iron could be obtained by 

 increasing the mines, and adopting better furnaces with a blast worked 

 by water-power, windmill or horse-power ; but the miners and other 

 inhabitants of the villages take great care not to mention to the 

 Maharajah's officials any valuable deposit of ore which may be 

 worked with advantage ; they pretend that the Maharajah takes away 

 all the iron for his arsenal and pays nothing for it, and that, when 

 a supply of any ore is discovered near a village, the inhabitants have 

 to work it by corvees, so that the discovery of a vein of valuable 

 mineral is a calamity to the people of the neighbourhood. But this 

 is probably untrue in many ways : the iron they supply is, as I have 

 said before, taken in lieu of taxes ; the care with which many of 

 the holes are concealed with rubbish and branches, induces me to 

 believe that a good deal of iron is smelted in a contraband way ; and 

 last but not least, making a secret of mineral wealth is quite consistent 

 with the love of hoarding riches so prevalent amongst natives. The 

 same concealment of ores is now going on in Huzara, where a little 

 iron is known to exist, and where the reason of the Kashmir miners 

 would certainly not avail ; and it is reported by the geological sur- 

 veyors of the Ranigunj coal-field that it is impossible to believe 

 , negative reports from natives. In Kashmir, moreover, the Maha- 

 rajah's government entertain the same childish fear, lest the mineral 

 wealth of the country should become known, and I well remember 

 with what silly recommendations of secrecy I was shown by one of 

 the Maharajah's servants a small piece of iron pyrites of the most 

 insignificant value. 



50. The rocks we have described form the Kothair bed (of 

 Carboniferous limestone ?). They are a succession of courses of lime- 

 stone, shales of a dark reddish or ochrous colour, dark slates and 

 calcareous sandstones. I am sorry I cannot give a section, but the 

 following remarks will, in a way, supply its want. 



The limestones are of two descriptions, viz. : some coarse and very 

 sandy, indeed so much so, that when the carbonate of lime is removed 

 by water charged with peroxide of iron, a brownish sandstone is 

 left ; it contains no fossils, and passes gradually into a rough grey 

 sandstone with a calcareous cement. The other variety of limestone is 

 aceous, and passes into calcareous slate ; it is dark blue or even 



