Manufacture of Bar Iron in Southern India. 387 



mother country. The Government both in England and in 

 India have therefore been unremitting in their endeavours 

 to promote and foster the export trade from India ; and in 

 the mean time have endeavoured to economise by means of 

 the internal productive resources of the country, and thus in 

 some measure reduce the export of specie, and at the same 

 time disseminate a knowledge of practical manufacturing 

 processes. 



2. Among the most extensive of the exports of England 

 to India, is the trade of bar iron, which to Madras alone 

 amounts to 1,000 tons per annum ; and while India is known 

 to produce malleable iron of a superior quality, it has been 

 frequently proposed as a question whether she could not 

 supply her own wants in this article at a cheaper rate than 

 if procured from England, if improved processes were 

 introduced in the reduction of the native ores. I am not 

 aware that any satisfactory experimental investigation of this 

 point has ever been instituted, or given to the public ; but 

 from the remarks in the reports of the Committee for investi- 

 gating the coal and mineral resources of India, it would seem 

 that little or nothing is as yet known upon the subject.* 



S. English iron is not used inland in Southern India, in 

 consequence of the great expence of land carriage, and 

 from the same cause, it is probable, that in Northern India 

 also, the only iron used is that made upon the spot ; and as 

 the manufacture must be very limited in quality, it becomes 



* It has been supposed by the Committee, that it would be more 

 desirable in the first instance to make good cast iron, than to attempt to 

 improve the bad wrought iron of the country; and with the view of 

 instituting an extensive set of experiments on the subject, a furnace has 

 been erected at the Mint at the suggestion of Major Forbes, one of the 

 Members of the Committee. Some delay took place in providing the 

 necessary apparatus, but everything being now ready, experiments will 

 shortly be entered upon for the production of cast iron. The valuable 

 suggestions of Capt. Campbell contained in this paper will be duly 

 brought to the notice of the Committee.— Ed. 



