s62 
THE TROPICAL AQR!CULTU??fST. [October i, 1891 
it is occupied with the idiosyncraeies of English 
and Iridian w rkmen ; dissertations on tbe recent 
Factory Act agitation ; the relative importa"ee in 
the social scale of the clerk and artisan ; the re- 
pressive influence of caste upon native amhitiona; 
the iriflueiioe of irrigation upon tbe fertility of 
the soil; anecdotes of Indian candidates for the 
English Pirliament; and other matters which, 
though interesting enough in themselves, have the 
slenderest connection wi'h the title of the book. 
Its arrangeniant ia also illogical and trying ; 
sequence there is none, and the n ore cognate iwo 
subj-'ots are the greater the distance separating 
them. For instance, while the author shows that 
the near proximity of ooal and iron is essentisl to 
the commercial produetioa of the latter (a truism 
by the way) half the book separates the chapters 
dealing with the two subjects, and constant crots 
refi rence is necessary to follow his arguments. 
And now, having criticised the pudding we shall 
proceed to extract the plums, for plums there are 
well worth investigation. I'hat ladia is an iron- 
producing country has been known frora the earliest 
times, lha armourers of DamaEous sent to India 
for their steel ; it has even been imported into 
England ; and the bridge over the Menai Straits 
was constructed largely of Indian metal. But to- 
day many thousands of tons are imported into 
India (or railway and other purposes, which, if 
thay could be produced at home, would have an 
important bearing on rc-mitlanceE, and the far- 
reajhing qa-^stioa of exoban nj, while they would 
give employment to thouia ^d^ of the people of the 
country. The author indicates four places in In ia 
where iron has been produced to R^jme extent on a 
commercial basis. The best known mines are those 
of Raneegunge, in Bengal, to work which the Bengal 
Iron C unpany was formed in 1 87-1. It proved a 
financial failure, and was closed in 1879, but the 
author argues with some show of reason that thh 
was not due to any want of the raw material, but 
to insufhoient capital and want of recognition by 
Government, owing to v/hose refusal to make a 
grant of Imd much additional expenditure was 
thrown upon the Company, and it had to borrow 
money at a high rate of interest Its system of 
manufacture, too, was much criticised, though it 
certainly seemed to have possessed every element of 
success. The ore cost only 8 annaa a ton at the 
furnaces, the lead for the fuel was very short, and 
it had limestome for flax and fireclay on the spot. 
The Company ha? been recently rehabilitated, and 
for the short time it has been at work, is understood 
to have been successful. The Wardha Valley, in 
the Central Provinces, is also well known to pos- 
sess an excellent iron ore, while thora also are coal, 
fitlds, and limestone is stated to abound, This 
has never been worked, ani a serious d.ffiouity 
here, and to some extent also at Kai eegunge, is 
the great deficiency of carbon in the local coal, 
a fault that is to a great extent common to nil 
Iniiian coal, and that is fatal to its sucoiissful use 
for smelting purposes without expensive preliminary 
processes that greatly add to the cost of the proiiuct. 
In Cutch iron ore of good quality is said to exist, 
but our information as to its qaality, as widl as of 
the fuel available for smelting ia limited, which is 
the case also of the Ohindwin VrJley and several 
other parts of Burma whore both ooal and iron are 
said to have been found. 
Of most interest to Southern India are the Salem 
iron (iidds, well known to contain ore of a very 
Gxci llent quality, and which have been worked on 
a very siuall scale by n^itivei for many years. 
Half a c;nvury ago the Indinn Stee', Iron and 
Chrome Company made iron, from S.ilem ore, at 
Porto Novo. It used ciiarcoal (or smelting, and 
the iron acquired a very high name as possessing 
qualities similar to Swedish iron, and being 
especially eu. table for conversion into steel. At 
the present day the knives made by ArnachfU m 
at Salem have a fame far wider than the Pieei- 
dency. While this Company was v. orkingit sei;t 
home large quantitiea of pig iron (tbeie were no 
factories for working up the raw material in In.Jia 
in those days), and it was of some oi this iron that 
the Menai ."^triiits Bri lgp, already referred to, was 
made. The e:-aoc causes of the winding up of 
the Company have not been tiaced. It is behoved 
to hi'.ve had trouble with w-iter in its mines and 
probably it fou even in those days, that char- 
coal emelting could not compete with coal. An 
authentic account of this Company, of iU methods 
of working, and the exact locality and present con- 
dition o£ its mines, and especially the reasons which 
induced it to estivblish its works oa th? Coast, thus 
involving a long lead for the ore, rath- r than on 
the spot, v/hen the cost of transport would have 
been incurrrd only for the 1 ss bulky pig iron 
would ba of much interest. The hitheito intuper- 
able bur to the extejusive working of 'he Salem 
iron fi-ilds has of course been the absence of 
coal, and we cordially agree with the author in 
urging a more thorough and minute examination 
of the neighbouring districts with a view to verify 
ing, once for all, whether any exists. A Ei^ya. 
Engineer Officer, whose opinion is entitled to res- 
pect, has eeclired that the cuciings of the Madras 
Bnilway in the Coimbatore District ehow clear signs 
of coal-bearing strata, and th iiiti the head of ttie 
Iniiian Geoiog cal Survey has spent so long a time 
as three days in examination autl thtn piojiaimed 
I !t to be ahalo, wa fiardly feel as convinced as we 
[ ought to be of the cnnsi^qnent iinpossibili y of the 
existence of coal in the District, tor did not the 
Geological Department for many years pooh-pooh 
the exidtence of coal at Singureiii. where the mines 
now hope to shortly turn cui 1,000 tons a 
day ? The author states that "co-al is nearly 
always found neir iron, and there appe-irs to be 
no reason why*; Salem fchould be an exception to 
the rule. " But this is rather confounding cause 
with effect, and the truth of the case is most 
probably, not that iron do?s not exist, but that 
it is hardly ever worked v/heu coal is not near it. 
Again he says:— "One of the great difficuUif-S in 
j t le way of thoroughly develo; ing the Salem fields 
i is the distance they are away from coal, but this 
I distance is not so great but that a light codl iram- 
I way, laid down ad hoc, would pay a rea ly large 
firm conr-umiug its hundrec's of to js of coal a 
day. " The nearpst coid fi'.l Js are those of Singareni, 
which are alre&iiy :n railway connection wul; Saleaa ; 
but the distance is quite prohibitive of the use of 
their produce for smelting purposes. Captain 
Townsend states that " Salem ore is bo good that 
it v?ould pay to take it to Cilculta and smelt it 
with the Kahabari coal, " but h • gives no figures 
in support of his contention, and without oioar 
proof we are unabLi to believe it. Tiie freight by 
rail and sea would be little short of the frtight 
via Madras or Calicut to England, and would be 
the equivc.leat of sending coais to Newcastle. He 
qualifies his statemi-nt further on, however. "At 
liie same time, good fuel, witmn reasonable distance, 
would be essential to the full development of the 
Salem fields, for the ore is far from being the same 
ihroughout, varying greatly, and only the best 
would be worth expoitiog to Bengal— if that. " 
In default of coal ho suggests the use of charcoal, 
liberal forest rigiits being combined with extensive 
fcpeoial plantations of babul wood. Figures are 
conspicuou3 by their absence in all his arguments, 
and in default of some convincing proof we cannot 
accept his conclusions, 
