714 
. Indian Steel. 
[December, 
extent, excepting the black iron sands, or magnetic iron 
sands, formed by natural disintegration from the older 
rocks, without any chemical transformation of the iron. 
The only substitutes for this iron, in pure flakes or grains, 
seem to be pisolitic and subnummulitic concretions, which 
are frequently very pure and unaltered. 
The other element in steel or wutz manufacture is per- 
sonal metallurgic skill. In India this appears to have been 
one of the qualities of the old races, or so-called indigenous 
races, the Kols, Gonds, Santals, Aguriahs, &c., as distinct 
from the otherwise superior races, the Low Hindoos, and 
the Kshatri, Rajput, and Brahman of the Upper Hindoo 
race. We find the analogy in Europe : the good metal- 
working races having personal skill were the Finns, the 
Biscayans, the Silurian, and Cornish ; while the Angles, 
Saxons, and Danes have, in their larger operations, trusted 
to extensive mechanism and systematic management, re- 
ducing the worker to a mere mechanical unit. This is a 
mode of obtaining large results, under a routine, with a fair 
average in quality at a small expense, but it is not the way 
to attain excellence in detail ; it is, in faCt, the principle of 
democracy as opposed to aristocracy, when applied to work 
and progress. 
If the steel manufacture is to be re-established in India, in 
its former splendour, the old principles must form the basis 
of aCtion, while the scientific powers of the English must 
aid in direction and forecast. 
The enormous mineral wealth of India, chiefly Southern 
India, in the form of magnetic iron, is a matter about which 
no doubt exists. Salim and Travankur could alone supply 
Europe for many centuries. As to the general distribution 
of iron ores that occur in abundance and workable quality, 
or have been already worked at various places, the author 
has compiled the following table from data in Ball’s volume 
on“ Economic Geology” (London, 1881), the arrangement 
being in accordance with the classification adopted elsewhere 
in his own books. This table supports the statements al- 
ready made on the subject of steel. 
London, Ottober, 1885. 
