1840.] 



Manganese Mvies near Wodoorti. 



45 



called charcoal stone (kolsah ka putther), which Hyder and Tip- 

 poo had made especial search for. Led by this hope, though the 

 nature of the formation over which I had already passed excited strong 

 suspicions against the truth of the report, 1 crossed the hills by a 

 steep and rugged path to Wodoorti, a village in a jungly valley, on the 

 opposite side. About two or three miles hence, in a sort of defile that 

 intersects the course of the chain on the north of the vallpy, at nearly 

 right angles, I was conducted to a few half choked up excavations, at 

 the bases of some large detached masses of a dark coloured rock, ex- 

 ternally ferruginous and rugged; internally of a bluish black hue, 

 tough and powdery under the hammer; and some parts, when struck, 

 emitting a sulphurous odour. It contains numerous veins and nests 

 of a shining foliated mineral of an iron grey colour (No. 5). Some of 

 the cavities contained a white fel spathic powder, others v/ere coated 

 with small stalactitic and botryoidal incrustations of the black mineral. 

 Before the blow-pipe, per se, it fuses partially at the edges, with slight 

 gaseous extrication, leaving a shining bluish black slag. In the yellow 

 or oxidizing flame, it gives out a slight sulphurous odour, and the slag 

 is affected by the magnet. With borax, on charcoal, it fuses with 

 slight ebullition into an amethystine glass ; and, with carbonate of 

 soda on platina foil, into a light bluish green glass. Wlien po\A dered, 

 and treated with muriatic acid, the extrication of the peculiar fumes 

 of chlorine sufficiently attest the presence of manganese. I was un- 

 able to detect the existence of plumbago by exposure to a deflagrating 

 heat with nitrate of potash. Hence the mineral would appear to be 

 the black oxide of manganese in combination with iron, and probably 

 a little sulphur and alumina. 



Sir Whitelaw Ainslie (Mat. Med. vol. i. p. 538), states that this 

 metal,— so useful in the arts in Europe, in the composition of the 

 finest kinds of crystal and flint glass, and common bottle glass ; 

 imparting a beautiful amethystine or red hue to glass, in yield- 

 ing the rich brown tint used for painting porcelain, in bleach- 

 ing, and in the preparation of chlorine gas, — is not common in India. 

 He mentions that Captain Arthur found it in Mysore. Since his time 

 however, it has been discovered by Colonel CuUen and Dr. Benza on 

 the Neilgherries, by Major Burney in Ava, — and occurs associated 

 with iron on the Himalayas. I have found it, also, in combination 

 with oxide of iron, in veins in the laterite composing the cliffs at Be- 

 dar, in the Nizam's territories, near the line of contact with the trap 

 on which the laterite there rests; in the sandstone of the Southern 

 Mahratta Country, between Kulladghee and the falls of the Gutpurba 



