70 



Oil the Fossils of the Eastern Portion 



[July 



are situated in the neiglibouvhood of vast forests, and near a river 

 navigable for boats during part of the year, it is probable, that at no 

 distant period, when the native government has undergone some amelio- 

 ration, iron may become an important article of commerce. On this 

 account, and because, although much has been written regarding Indian 

 steel, nothing has yet been brought prominently forward regarding the 

 finer kinds of iron ore w^ith which that country abounds, I will make a 

 few additional observations regarding them. 



Ur. Heyne has accurately described the manufacture of iron in the 

 Carnatic, to the south of the Pennar river, and he states that it is, when 

 first smelted, extremely brittle, requiring several operations to bring it 

 into a malleable state. I possess specimens of two varieties of ore used 

 in the district in which he observed the processes, and where I have 

 myself seen them carried on. The one, an iron sand, collected in the 

 beds of rivers, consists of the protoxide, mixed with much of the perox- 

 ide ; the other, a red schist, is almost entirely composed of red oxide, 

 but in the centre of the mass it affects the magnet. Not far from where 

 this rock occurs, I collected specimens of hornblende schist, leaving 

 little doubt as to the ores being of the same nature, the former having 

 become altered in situ^ in the same manner as some of the superficial 

 strata at Deemdoortee are seen to do. I therefore conclude, that the 

 superior quality of the Nirmul iron depends on the ore being a com- 

 paratively pure protoxide. It certainly is not dependent on the nature 

 of the fuel, which is much the same in both places*. Captain Herbert, 

 indeed, long ago suggested, that the superiority of the Gwalior iron over 

 that principally worked in the Himalayahs, depended on the former 

 being a magnetic ore, like that of Sweden ; but the first accurate infor- 

 mation on the subject was communicated by Dr. Royle to Mr. De La 

 Beche, who statesy, on the authority of that gentleman, that magnetic 

 iron ore is extensively diffused in hornblende slate in the central range 

 of mountains in India, and that it also occurs in the Him.alayahs. This 

 geological position corresponds with that of the Nirm.ul ore ; but the 

 latter does not bear any resemblance, except in its peculiar lustre, to the 

 Menaccanite of Cornwall, to which it is compared by Mr. De La Beche ; 



* Iron, which has been ascertained to be superior, for many purposes, to the best 

 Geimaa iron, has been recently imported from the western coast of India; but the 

 mines fiom which it was obtained have not been examined. Captain Jervis, of the 

 Bombaj' Engineers, however, informs me, that ores, powerfully affecting the magnet, 

 exist in great quantity at Taygoor, a village of the Koucan, not far from the port from 

 ■which the iron in question was procured. 



+ Manual of Geology, 3rd Edit., p. 435. 



