282 
Mineral Productions 
[Octk, 
ing a fonndery for sliot and shells or other cast iron work, hut would by no means 
admit of working iron into bars, as the expense of procuring a power of any kind 
requisite to drive a mill would absorb the profit. The hills are composed of massy 
sandstone : granite, iron ore, potter's clay, and veins of quart/, and mica, are to be 
found imbedded in granite. 
BedAr hill, near CalgSon, is composed of enormous masses of granite and whin, 
with a great variety of iron ore. The bed of the river about this place is on loose and 
open rock. I imagine an attempt to sink a mine here would be attended with great 
expense and trouble ; as it would require a considerable power to clear it of water. 
Within forty or fifty miles of BhSgilpur, in the Carakpur district or zillali, a rich 
vein of the lead ore, named galena, is to be fonud ; it produces sixty per cent, of 
lead, and perhaps silver ■worth extracting. The mountain is disputed property be- 
tween Rfija Rfip NarAen Dia and Riija Cadir Alt. 
As Doctor Buchanan had visited the place and brought away samples of this ore, 
I judged it improper to lose time in visiting it, and therefore, sent for samples of the 
ore, which is the best I ever saw. 
The rocks about Mungher arc quartz, except a few which are composed of a slaty 
stone of a bhteisli colour, resembling in its texture mangoe wood, which is in a state 
of decomposition to a considerable depth, and is intersected throughout by quart/, 
veins, which always break into small lhombohedra and cubes, and another substance 
appearing as if vitrified, resembling a cinder. The earth of the valleys is coarse 
and red to tlic depth of from fort)' to fifty feet, resting in some places on quartz, 
and in others on schist, the schist inclining 15°, dipping to the east. Water issues 
plentifully, the stone being full of rifts, and no doubt opening into the Ganges. 
On the road towards Carakpur, between Munghdr and a flat well called Risi-kiind 
now in the jungles, there is to he found large masses of muddy white quartz, beau- 
tifully clouded with brownish red. The stone is very hard and durable, but difficult 
to work. 
The Carakpur hills are mostly composed of quartz, from which issues many 
hot springs, which constantly retain their heat in all seasons of the year. The wa- 
ter also is very pure. In the centre of this cluster of hills, at a place called Bhnbaud, 
there is a large hot spring aud a limestone rock. The spring issues from quartz. 
The limestone is of a pink colour, and some of it white, the fracture like gypsum : 
the lime made from it is very white, as the stone is pretty free from iron. 
The road into Bimband is either from Malipfir or Milki, about twelve or fourteen 
miles from either place. Saul timbers are procurable at Bimband of a small and 
inferior kind : they are procured from a few inhabitants, who dwell in a valley at 
that place. The hills are uninhabited, the valleys fertile, but the population yet 
thin. 
The jungles are mostly Bair, and the + and a tree§ from which the Cot/, or Terra 
Japonica is produced . If the former were infected with the Lac insect, the produce 
would be great. I did not see a single insect of that description in any of the trees. 
The natives make small quantities of Cat, A, and dispose of it at the rate of two rupees 
per maund, very pure : also at the above place a black wood, resembling ebony, is 
procurable ; it is called Cin, and might be made an article of commerce. 
The quartz at Milki is of so pure a nature, that it might profitably be.manufac- 
tured into glass. The hills in Gheddr near Malipur produce good limestone, but 
the streams not being navigable, it woidd not pay the expense of conveyance. 
At a place called Gariac61, a days journey from MunghCr, is found a kind of slaty 
basaltjb much used for many purposes. It dips to the west three inches in the foot, 
which is contrary to all the surrounding rocks ; and ten feet below the base of the 
rock, it may be bad sound and in large slabs ; but in the air it will decompose in the 
course of a few years. On the summit of the same hill, a black, durable stone is 
got, which will not decompose, but it is very hard to work ; aud near it is a rock of 
grey millstone grit, much used for hand millstones. 
At Masamganj the fine black basalt is got: this stone is very much in use ; hut it 
is both difficult and expensive to bring the stones out of any of the hills, the roads 
being bad and dangerous. There is also a white stratified substance, with small red- 
dish streaks, at from one to three inches distance ; it is softer and feels more greasy 
than pipe clay; it appears to be decomposed stone, and is very like white lead, or 
the Spanish earth used in England for the purpose of adulterating white lead. I 
t Name illegible. — E d. 
§ Possibly the Khair. — Ed. 
Qusere greenstone slate ? — Ed. 
