Chap. VT. ] 
SPESSARTITE. 
169 
name of spessartite. In the Museum there are also some specimens of 
spessartite from Kulu, presented by Colonel G. Gordon Young. They are 
stated to have been found in mica-schist. Apart from this the only 
yet recognized occurrences of this mineral in India are in the gondite 
series in the areas mentioned above. As this is the characteristic 
mineral of this series of rocks it is to be found in nearly all the varie- 
ties of the gondite series, a list of the rocks of which will be found on page 
329 ; it is to be understood that spessartite occurs in all those in the name 
of which the word gondite occurs, as well as in those rocks in the name of 
which it is explicitly mentioned. The tjrpical occurrence is of course in 
the rock known as gondite, this being composed of spessartite and quartz. 
Frequently the rock is very fine-grained so that the individual garnets 
are not to be distinguished by the naked eye, but only with a lens, or in 
some cases only in thin sections under the microscope. On the other 
hand, the rock is often sufficiently coarse-grained for the crystalline form 
to be easily visible to the naked eye, the crystals being sometimes so 
large that they would have a diameter of one or even two inches across 
if they were whole. It is not necessary to give a Hst of all the localities 
for this mineral since it is f oimd in nearly all the deposits associated with 
the gondite series ; and lists of these deposits in the districts of Balaghat, 
Bhandara, Chhindwara, and Nagpur, in the Central Provinces are given on 
pages 695, 735, 772, and 841. The only other localities are KajHdongri 
in Jhabua, and Jothvad in Narukot, and the above-mentioned Kulu 
occurrence. By turning up the description of any particular deposit it 
wiU be found if spessartite occur at that particular place or not. 
At a few of these deposits spessartite has not yet been detected ; as, 
for example, at Sitapar in the Chhindwara district. 
It will be as well to emphasize here the enormous importance of this 
mineral from the economic point of view. As shown 
Abundance and eco- on pages 293 and 353, a considerable proportion of 
ncniic importanre of , . , , 
spessartite. the manganese -ores of the gondite areas has been 
derived from this mineral by chemical alteration. 
The consequence is that in the course of quarrying the manganese-ores 
large quantities of gondite and other rocks of this series are found in 
every stage of alteration into manganese-ore. The quantity of such 
rock in either the fresh condition or partly altered to manganese-ore is 
enormous, and the quantity of spessartite being thrown on to the dumps 
every year must rim into thousands, if not into hundreds of thousands, 
of tons. I am not mentioning this as a fact to be regretted ; for 
spessartite is at present a valueless mineral, although it often contains 20 
