1044 
MANGANESE DEPOSITS OF INDIA : DESCRIPTIVE. [ Part IV". 
According to the same Reports, page 6, peroxide of manganese was 
also obtained from the same area. According to the Gazetteer for 
Southern India, page 29, published by Pharoah and Co. in 1855 : — 
' manganese-ore of great purity has recently been discovered to a very con- 
siderable extent in the Coomaram Tannah ' 
of which Chipurupalli was the chief station. 
Mr. D. E. Carmichael says l ' that manganese (sddda) is to be had on the 
rock at BimUpatam and is delivered in the to\vn at two annas a maund '. 
Dr. King in 1886 2 described the use of psilomelane as road-metal 
on the road to Palkonda at a point about 6 miles to the northward of 
V^izianagram, He also says 3 that : — 
' traces of a similar development of crystalhme limestone and associated 
manganese-ore occur near Ramachandrapuram 4 in the Salur zamindari ; the high 
road, when it bifurcates to Bobbilli on the one side and Salur on the other, being 
also metalled for some distance with debris of the ore ' . 
The known workable deposits of manganese-ore of this district 
nearly all lie in the Vizianagram Zamindari, and the above-mentioned 
ores from Bimlipatam and Vizianagram were, in all probability, not 
actually extracted at these towns but in the adjoining country. 
A syndicate was formed in 1891 to work these deposits, and there 
was a small initial export of 674 tons in 1892 (not reported in the 
official statistics), with an export of 3,130 tons in 1893. In 1895, 
the syndicate was converted into a company under the title of the 
Vizianagram Mining Company, Ld., with the sole rights to work 
manganese-ore in the Zamindari of that name. A brief account of 
the work up to 1896 has been given by Mr. H. G. Turner^, one of the 
directors of the above-mentioned company, and formerly Collector of 
the Vizagapatam district. 
The success of the Vizianagram Mining Co. gave rise to active 
prospecting by other people and concessions vv-ere obtaincid by 
Messrs. Gordon WoodrofTe & Co. of Coconada, Messrs. A. S. N. & Co. 
of Nellore, and by Mr. H. G. Turner. But all the best deposits had 
apparently been secured by the V. M. Co., and very little ore has yet 
been extracted from any of the other deposits except Avagudem.^ 
1 Vizagapatam District Manual, p. 155, (1869). 
a Rec. G. S. I., XIX, p. 155, (1886). 
3 Page 156. 
4 ?Ilainabliadrapur<>i!!. 
5 Jour. Iron Sie i Inst., 1890, No. II, pp. 165-1 0 
6 Since trausftrred to the V. M. Co. 
