Chap. XXVIII.] smeltixg maxg-otese-oees ix i>dia. 
595 
Iron-ores occur iii great abundance in many parts of India and have 
T,, , . , been smelted from time immemorial bv the 
I he smelting of manga- • 
nese-ores by the natives of natives. It is interesting to note that in some 
cases the ores smelted have been mangani- 
ferous, sometimes highly so. Whether the use of manganiferous 
ores was dependent on local occurrence and hence merely accidental, 
it is difficult to say. But. judging from the fact that in some cases 
true manganese-ores have been mixed in with iron-ores in the 
furnace, it seems probable that in these cases at least the native 
smelters have recognized that the addition of this constituent has 
some beneficial effect on the quality of the iron produced. Thus I found 
that the Dhavads or iron-smelters of Mahabaleshwar in the Western 
Ghats have a separate name — iraral — ^for manganese-ore, and that in 
former days, before smelting was stopped here on accoimt of the damage 
done to the forests, some of the manganese-ore was used in the charge. 
This was on the authority of two Dhavads who had formerly smelted in 
the times when this industry was flourishing. A writer in the Indo- 
European Commemal Trade Register^ refers to a tradition amongst 
the Dhavads that the Phoenicians used to carry away manganese-ores. 
Mr. H. G. Turner, taking as his evidence the occurrence of vestiges of 
furnaces close to Garbham Hill-, says that the manganese -ores of 
Garbham in the Vizagapatam district were formerly worked by the 
native smelters. The example best known in India is the smelting that 
. at present goes on at Ghogra in the Jabalpur 
district. Here a manganiferous iron-ore is smelt- 
ed in small native iron-furnaces ; the product is a rather hard steely iron 
known as Meri, and is La greet demand in the surrounding country, where 
the hhdrs or blacksmiths weld it on to ordinary country-made soft iron to 
form the edges of axes and scythes, the striking faces of hammers, and the 
heads of anvils. As an example of the demand for this metal I may mention 
that when I was at Ghogra I foimd some blacksmiths who had come all the 
way from Rewah simply to get a fresh stock of this iheri. The ore from 
which the iron is smelted is a manganiferous micaceous hematite, the 
manganese occiirring as veinlets and films of psilomelane in the hematite, 
into which it has been secondarily introduced. Some of the ore I saw 
being selected for smelting was pure psUomelane, however. The shallow 
pits from which the ore is obtained are in Dhanwahi \-illage limits. Mallet 
1 I. p. 47, (1907). 
2 Jour. Iron Steel Inst., Xo. U for 1896, p. 160. 
