MANGANESE DEPOSITS OF INDIA : 
DESCRIPTIVE. [Part IV. 
9. Balaghat. 
(Bhapweli, Hipapup and Manegaon ) 
(Central Provinces Prospectinc. Syndicate.) 
{Sci Plates 13, 20 a'ld 21.) 
The first reference to this deposit is probably that contained in the 
^. ' Gazetteer of the Central Provinces of India ' 
published in 1870, page 18. 
The first explicit reference, however, is contained in the letter, dated 
3rd September 1883, from Colonel Bloomfield (see page 692), according 
to whom the ridge on which the manganese-ore occurs is composed of 
granite, the manganese-ore being ' some hundred feet wide bounded 
on either side by the red granite '. Mr. P. N. Rose, late of the Geological 
Survey of India, examined this deposit in the field season of 1888-89, 
and in his progress report described the ore-body as being composed 
of saiidstone-quartzites and quartzites, usually jaspery, interstratified 
with thick beds of manganese-ore, the quartzites being often impregnated 
with manganese. These, he says, are overlain by mica-phyllites and 
underlain by ' massive gneiss weathering like gritstone '. He places 
the ore-band at the base of the Chilpi Ghat scries of transition rocks and 
says that there is a denudation-unconformity between the ' quartzite- 
sandstone ' and the gneiss. As will be explained below, the underlying 
rock is not a gneiss, but a conglomeratic grit that has been rendered 
more or less schistose and sericitic There is, moreover, no marked 
unconformity between the ' quartzite-sandstone ' and the conglomeratic 
grit and they must both be referred to the same series of rocks. (See 
pages 311—314.) 
Finally, in 1901, this deposit was secured by the Central Provinces 
Prospecting Syndicate and opened up by Mr. A. D. Sanders. After 
several changes in the manager of the mine it passed into the charge 
of Mr. H. R. Holmes, and has now become the largest producing deposit 
in India. 
The Balaghat manganese-ore deposit occupies a spur jutting out 
^ ^ from the 2,000-foot plateau forming the highlands 
"■^ " of Balaghat and Bilaspur (conveniently designated 
the ' Baihar plateau '), into the 1,000-foot plain extending from Nagpur 
to Balaghat. The trend of this ridge is south-south- west curling round to 
south-west at the southern extremity (see fig. 42), where it approaches 
