724 MANGANESE DEPOSITS OF INDIA : DESCRIPTIVE. [PaBT IV : 
rock as was necessary was first removed, and then the layers of ore on the 
footwall (east) side were, by inserting crow-bars into the dividing planes, 
levered over one by one and allowed to fall, after which they were broken 
np by sledge hammers ; or, when too thick for this, by lighting a wood- 
fire below the fallen mass, when the unequal expansion of the upper 
and lower surfaces of the slab caused it to crack. There was often a 
great difficulty in detaching these slabs, but it was all done with crow- 
bars, wedges, and sledge-hammers. It was sometimes found necessary 
to heat the surface of ore with a big wood- fire and then to throw water 
on the heated surface and thus crack it. Occasionally the hanging 
wall was attacked first. Then the slabs had to be first levered into a 
vertical position and thrown over to the west side. The above 
description still applies, except that blasting is now resorted to and the 
use of fire has been abandoned. 
After the ore so detached has been broken up by the coolies to a 
convenient size, it is passed to coolie women, who clean it with the usual 
small cobbing-hanmiers ; but a large nimiber of large pieces of apparently 
pure ore are sent away without this cleaning. Several levels with rails 
have been run out on the east side of the ore-ridge to facilitate the 
disposal of the waste, consisting of poor ore, qiiartzite, and wall-rock 
or overburden. 
The portion of the deposit to which the most attention has been de- 
voted is that in Hirapur. A level, known as the main level i, has been 
run along the west side of the ore-body at about 50 feet below its highest 
point. The hanging wall of phyllites has been removed from the whole 
of the deposit above this level, leaving above it an irregularly excavated 
ridge of ore. The ore-surfaces thus exposed exhibit very well the vary- 
ing dip, the crumpling, waving, and jointing, characterizing this part 
of the deposit. This ridge is now being pulled down and the cleaned 
ore obtained as already described is stacked and passed by the staff 
of the mine. It is then loaded into 1-ton trucks on the main-level rails, 
where the gauge, as of all other rails on the mine, is 2 feet. (The northern 
end of this level taps the Manegaon portion of the deposit.) The trucks 
once started travel by gravity southwards along this level, which has a 
gradient of 1 in 75, the speed being regulated by brakes. At the southern 
end is a gravity incline (No. 2), down which the trucks are lowered 
in pairs, the descending loaded trucks hauling up the empty ones. The 
1 See Plate 21. 
