1844.] 



Early use of Cast Iron in China. 



211 



"little of the Gond language ; Hindui and Hindustani are spoken through- 

 " out all the districts W. of Jubbalpur. I have begun making a collection 

 " of Gond words and I am astonished to find that many are either Cana- 

 "rese or Tamil." Extracts of a letter from the Revd. Mr. Loesch to the 

 Revd. Mr. Mitchell, Bombay, dated Karanjia 1 April 1842. Or. Chr. Spec . 

 Vol. 3. (2nd. Series) p. 240. 



If this fact proves to be correct, it opens an interesting field for ethno- 

 logical investigation. The Revd. M. Loesch was the head of a German 

 Mission proposed to be founded in Goandwana. He arrived in Bombay 

 in September 1841, with 5 unordained brethren who were artisans and 

 agriculturists. After some difficulty in selecting a station they rented some 

 waste lands at Karangia. But the climate proved uncongenial. Four out 

 of the six Missionaries died of fever and in the begining of 1 843 the two 

 remaining brethren abandoned their station and came to Kamptee in- 

 tending however to resume the Mission. 



To the same effect Mr. D. F. M'Leod of the Bengal Civil Service, writes 

 to the Secretary of the Asiatic Society : " I hive long purposed intimating 

 to you a remarkable philological fact. It was clearly ascertained by a 

 German missionary, named Loesch, that the language spoken by our 

 Gonds is fundamentally the same with the Canarese. Mr. Loesch had 

 become familiar with the latter formerly at Mangalore, and other places 

 under the Bombay Presidency, and found himself able almost to converse 

 with the Gonds, or at all events to make himself in a great measure un- 

 derstood by them by using this language ; and being a gentleman of 

 great acquirements and philological acuteness, had he lived, I have no 

 doubt he would have been able to throw mu,ch light on the interesting 

 question of the origin of the people. It has been decreed otherwise ; but 

 were the facts generally known, Canarese scholars might be induced to 

 turn their attention to the subject." Friend of India 28th March 1844. 

 p. 203. 



Early use of Cast Iron in China. — A letter has recently been re- 

 ceived from the celebrated Prussian missionary Gatzlaff, who is at present 

 in China. It contains the following curious observations : " I have obtain- 

 ed uncontradictable evidence that the art of constructing buildings of cast 

 iron was practised several centuries ago in the celestial empire. I found on 

 the summit of a hill near the town of Tsing-Kiang-Foo, in the province of 

 Kiang-Nan, a pagoda entirely formed of cast iron, and covered with bas- 

 reliefs and inscriptions. The dates and the form of the character belong 

 to the period of the dynasty of the Tsangs, who occupied the throne as 



