JAN.— MAR. 1857.] 
Proceedings. 
shillings a pound. The lead is not found in veins but in detached 
pieces, so that the supply is occasionally irregular and the search 
forit laborious and often fruitless. 
Inferior descriptions of lead come from Spain and Ceylon, and 
are used in the manufacture of crucibles and of the inferior sort of 
Pencils and in polishing Cast Iron. 
At present Mr. Royle says, finely powdered Graphite can, by 
an extreme degree of pressure, be rendered nearly as compact as 
the best natural Graphite, or we should be without any more good 
drawing Pencils. 
The great Manufacturers of Pencils in England reported the 
Kumaon and Travancore specimens as quite useless for the manu- 
facture of black lead pencils, observing that they could not use the 
specimens in the state in which they had been sent without da- 
maging their machinery, at the same time they could not conceive 
why purer specimens should not be found in the same locality. 
In regard to the objections made to the specimens forwarded, 
General Cullen, the Resident of Travancore, remarks that one mo- 
tive of their selection was to exhibit the matrix or Laterite rock in 
which they were found. 
2. Reports V, VI, VII, and IX of the proceedings of the Offi- 
cers engaged in the Magnetic Survey of India, from the Chief 
Secretary. 
3. Memoirs of the Geological Survey of India, Vol. I. Part 1. 
from T. Oldham; A. M., F. R. S., F. G. S. S^^c. Superintendent of 
Geological Survey of India. 
This is the first of a series of Memoirs published by order of the 
Right Honorable the Governor General of India in Council. The 
subject of the present Notice contains a highly interesting account 
of the Talcheer Coal Fields, situated in the Tributary Mahal of 
Cuttack, there is also a short notice of the Iron Ore procurable in 
the same locality. 
Appended to this Memoir will be found accounts of the aurife- 
rous deposits of Assam and the vicinity of Shue-gween in the Pro- 
