APiUL— JUNE, 1857.] Natural History. 
161 
joulat being at Vienna, received the MS. from M. de Hammer for puWlcation ia 
Paris. It is understood that this publication will not be mucli longer delayed. 
Natural History. 
A paper on tlie metalliferous deposits of Kumaon and Gurh- 
^val by W. J. Henwood, late Chief Mineral Surveyor in the N. W . 
Provinces, which was read before the R. Geological Society of 
Cornwall has appeared in the last No. of the Edinburgh New Phi- 
losophical Journal.'^* , 
Mr. Kenwood met with copper pyrites and purple copper ore 
in quartzose vems^ occurring sparingly in the granitic and gneiss 
formation and somewhat more plentifully at the junction of the talc 
and clay slates of Poker, Seera, &c. 
Iron ores occur in great abundance throughout the clay slate 
formation and in some parts of the talc slate series. Mr. Kenwood 
particularly notices the fact that hunches of ore dip from the mass 
of the nearest granite formation not only in the case of the iron of 
the Himalayas but as regards the gold of Brazil. 
The talc f^late formation he found to exhibit a strong resemblance 
to the gold districts of Brazil particularly to the Jacotinga forma- 
tion in which the richest gold deposits occur. Accordingly he 
found that gold mines were actually worked in Kumaon and Gurh- 
wal, but in the rudest and most inefficient manner. The usual 
method of preparing the rock for being worked was to soften it by 
the application of fire. 
** jBut in their small and ill-ventilated mines this mode is very ineffective, 
■while the smoke and foul air, generated by the combustion, stop the work of 
every other person in the mine at the time. The imperfection of the tools 
and mode of working ; the ignorance wliich prevails of the advantages of 
ventilation ; of the economy of labour, by extracting the ore through passages 
large enough to allow the workmen unimpedeLl action; as well as the native 
smelter's inability to treat any but the richest and most fusible ores ; render it, 
therefore, an object cf paramount importance, in the view of the Indian miner, 
to avoid, by every possible device, the opening of large galleries. But the softer 
and more fusible ores are far less plentiful than those which are too refractory for 
the native smelting furnace ; and the two varieties of ore are so intimately mixed in 
* No. I. Vol. III. new series— 1856. 
t Do. do. p. 139. 
I 
