IRON. 93 



In April 1908, a public company was floated in Teng-yiieh under 

 the directorship of the chief magistrate at that time. This company 

 raised a capital equal to Rs. 30,000 approximately with which it was 

 proposed to prospect for minerals and to exploit deposits then 

 located in the Teng-yiieh district. The first work taken up was 

 the development of this iron industry in the T'ien-t'ang-kuan, 

 which had previously been carried on in a desultory fashion by the 

 local inhabitants. I was informed that small profits were being 

 made in this section of the Company's operations, but I do not 

 know what has happened to it since then. It probably came to 

 an end during the political troubles which commenced soon after- 

 wards. 



Iron smelting in the Sha-ch'iao neighbourhood. 



Iron is smelted from ores obtained at several places in the vici- 

 nity of Sha-ch'iao, a small village four miles north-west of Chen- 

 nan Chou (lat. 25° II' ; long. 101° 16'), on the main trade route 

 between Ta-li Fu and Yunnan Fu. There was a foundry in 1909 

 at Hsi-ka-shan, a village between T ? ien-shen-t'ang and Sha-ch'ang, 

 where the cast iron was worked up into iron bowls of 12, 14 and 

 16 inches diameter. These supply the towns and villages along 

 this trade route. The processes used were much the same as those 

 I have just described. 



At Ye-cho-ho I examined a blast furnace 25 feet high. This 

 furnace was constructed of massive brickwork lined with clay. 

 The ores smelted consisted of soft flaky hematite with some 

 magnetite and they were reduced with wood charcoal without 

 preliminary calcination. The largest mines are said to be two 

 stages from Chen-nan Chou and to be 60 years old. I did not 

 succeed in inspecting them. The high Chinese blast furnace used 

 in Central Yunnan for iron smelting is usually built of massive stone 

 or brickwork, enclosed in heavy beams held together by cross pieces. 

 The walls are thick and lined with a siliceous paste. The furnaces 

 are often 20 or 25 feet high and 6 or 7 feet across at the widest 

 portion, narrowing to three feet at the hearth and at the mouth. 

 Sometimes the top part is not tapered as in the section depicted 

 by Rocher. The blast is always produced by a cylindrical blower 

 usually operated by a primitive turbine. The tuyer is generally 

 cut from hard quartzite or sandstone. 



