CnAr. XXX.] dtiarwar : sangli state. 
643 
ity of the ' coal ', which was amongst other minerals reported to occur in 
these hills, but a specimen procured for him was pronounced by the editor 
of the above Journal to be an ' iron ore, probably containing some plum- 
bago.'^ This mineral, which the natives had designated iddali kallu, or 
charcoal-stone, was no doubt the same manganese-ore that, being called 
kolsd ka patthar by the natives, led Newbold 2 to visit the locality, which 
is in the hills about 2 miles east of Chik-Vadvati village (Chick Wodoorti 
of Newbold). 
' At the baso of some of the blackest masses, tlie guides pointed out partially 
obliterated excavations wliicli the old inhabitants of the village stated to me had 
been mad? by the agents of Hydcr and Tippoo3,' 
no doubt under the same mistake as to the nature of this 
'charcoal-stone'. So that the first manganese mining in India of which 
we have any record was probably unwittingly carried out at this locality 
towards the end of the eighteenth century for the Mysorean princes 
Haidar Ali and Tipu Sultan. That the black mineral found was really 
manganese-ore was shewn by Lieutenant J. Braddock 4 who tested 
Newbold's specimens. Newbold says that ' the formation of the 
adjacent hills is mica, hornblende, and a chloritic schist, passing in 
their upper portions, into sihceous ferruginous schists and a lateritic 
rock' ^. On page 213 he says that the black mineral is ' more or 
less blended with siliceous and argillaceous matter' 6^ while elsewhere 
he mentions the occurrence of manganese-ore ' in the laterite area 
capping the granitic and hypogene rocks of the Kupputgode range '. 
The occurrence of manganese-ores in these hills is also mentioned 
in the Bombay Gazetteer.^ 
Early in 1903 Mr. T. B. Kantharia, attracted by Newbold's report, 
went to Chik-Vadvati and on behalf of the Bombay Company, Limited, 
obtained a prospecting license for manganese. In 1905, Mr. J. M. 
Maclaren visited the area, and supplied me with notes and specimens, on 
which, together with the short account given in Mr. Maclaren's paper 
' Notes on some Auriferous Tracts in Southern India '9, the following 
1 Newbold, Jour. Ro;j. As. Soc, VII, p. 204, (1843). 
2 Mad. Jour. Lit. Sci., XI, pp. 44-40, {1840);Joi<r Roy. As. Soc, VII, pp.212. 
214, (1843). 
3 Jour. Roy. As. Soc, VII, p. 212, (1843). 
4 Mad. Jour. Lit. Sci., XI, p. 51, (1840). 
5 Same as 2, p. 214. 
6 Ibid., p. 213. 
7 Jour. As. Soc. Beng., XIII, p. 995, (1844). 
8 Vol. XXII, Dharwar T'istrict, p. 25, (1884). 
9 Rtc. Geol. Surv. Ind., XXXIV, p. 128, (1905). 
