478 
MANGANESE DEPOSITS OF INDIA : ECONOMICS. [PaKT III : 
It is also proposed to run out a brancli of the Bengal -Nagpur Rail- 
way from Tumsar Road to Katangi in western Balaghat, along the same 
route as the Central India Mining Company's steam tramway : whilst 
there is also a desire for a line joining Katangi to Balaghat, but such 
a line has not yet been sanctioned. 
In Jhabua in Central India, Messrs. Kiddle, Reeve and Companjf 
have, nearly from the first, obviated the necessity of bullock-cart trans- 
port by the construction of a light 2-foot gauge line from Kajlidongri 
to Meghnagar on the Godhra-Ratlam Railway, a distance of 5| miles. 
This was at first worked by hand-tramming, but has, I believe, been now 
converted for steam traction. In the Sandur area a 5| miles' extension 
of the metre-gauge Southern Mahratta Railway has been constructed 
from Mariyamanhalli on the Hospet-Kottur Branch of the Southern Mah- 
ratta Railway to the unloading station of the aerial ropeway at the foot 
of the hill near Ramandrug ; whilst there is a proposition, now under 
consideration, of making further extension of about 20 miles' length to 
Kamataru in the southern part of the Sandur Hills ; this will possibly 
be on the assisted -siding principle, by which the railway company supplies 
the permanent- way material and the mining company bears the entire 
cost of construction. The New Mysore Manganese Co., Ltd., is putting 
down a 2-foot gauge line for steam traction from the Kumsi mines to 
Shimoga Railway Station, a total distance of 20 miles, of which 10 miles 
had still to be constructed in September 1907. If this process conti- 
nues it is probable that in the course of the next five years most of the 
important deposits will be directly connected to the railway system of 
the country by some sort or other of light feeder line. This will of 
course set free a large number of bullock-carts, which, as before the 
start of the manganese industry, can be used in the fields, and for the 
carriage of countrji- produce in cases where it is not also carried on the 
new railway lines. A large number of carts have been specially made 
for the manganesoore traffic. But the owners of these will not have 
much cause of complaint at the disappearance of their lucrative occu- 
pation, 'or their profits have in most cases probably paid several times 
over for the cost of the carts. This diminished demand for carts may 
have the advantage, as considered from the mine owner's point of view, 
of causing th? unemployed cartmen to take to mining, and so lessening 
the labour difiiculty. 
As regards the cost per ton-mile of carrying ore on these mining lines 
I have little information. But I should think it would not average more 
than ^ an anna, including both the costs of working, interest on capita] 
