Chap. XLI.] 
SHIMOGA : BIKONHALLI. 
1139 
The deposit seems to have been opened up very badly at the outset 
and was only beginning to recover from 
The working of the initial bad treatment at the time of my visit. 
deposit. .. . . 1 1 • ■ r 1 
it IS now being worked m a series of trenches 
parallel to the length of the deposit and therefore horizontal. Lines 
of rail are being run along these trenches for the removal of the ore 
and waste. The waste, of which there is a considerable quantity, is 
being run to the east and west of the deposit on the line of strike ; al- 
though the waste is thus dumped on the line of strike of the deposit, I 
am told that it was first ascertained that the deposit did not continue in 
either of these directions. Plate 57 shows a portion of this deposit. All 
the material heaped on the unopened ground left standing up between 
the cuttings is manganese -ore, which had been quarried faster than it 
could be removed. The steam tramway being constructed to join up 
this mine with Shimoga Station, by a 29-miles' route via Choradi, leaves 
the deposit at its western end. The gauge is 2-foot with 20 lb. rails, and 
the gradient in favour of the load, with a maximum of 1 in 80, the maxi- 
mum gradient against the load being 1 in 100. The trucks used are of 
two sizes, the larger taking a maximum of .3 tons of ore and the smaller 
of \\ tons. In September 1907 there were still some 10 miles of rail 
to be laid down. 
9. Bikonhalli. 
Bikonhalli village is situated north of Shimoga near the 8th mile on 
the road from Shimoga to Shikarpur. The deposit — usually referred to 
by the New Mysore Manganese Company as Norton's Block- — lies 1^ 
miles W. S. W. of the 8th milestone, on top of a hill rising to some 400 or 
500 feet above the level of the road at Bikonhalli. This hill is | mile 
W. N. W. of A 2,766 feet. According to Mr. Slater's map, the 
rocks in the hills immediately surrounding the hill in which the deposit 
lies are quartzites, quartz-keratophyres, limestones, hematitic quartz- 
ites, and schists. 
The top of the hill has a N. N. W. strike, and is formed by two small 
peaks separated by a neck not many feet lower, and some 40 
paces long. The total length of the two peaks together with the neck 
between is about 180 paces. The neck is comparatively free from ores, 
IV 2 m 
