PART 3.] 
Ball: Building and Ornamental Stones of India. 
107 
of the place—uneducated meu earning probably an average wage of about a penny a day. 
I believe that no instance of such pure patient workmanship, so dignified, yet so -various, is 
to be found in the world.” In a very beautifully illustrated Work on the Architecture of 
Ahmedabad by Mr. T. C. Hope, b. c. s., with architectural notes by James Fergusson, 
photographs illustrative of this work and of buildings in sandstone will be found; many 
of these buildings are comparatively modern, and some are quite recent. It would appear 
that the art of working in these materials has been more fully conserved in Guzerat than 
in any other part of India. But it has been by no means lost or even discontinued, though 
it is not extensively practised now in the northern cities. 
I am informed by my friend Mr. Haeket that at Eialo in Jaipur the Juice is still made, 
and that the traceries in it are as delicate as any which are to be seen in the Taj. Other 
quarries near Jaipur are also in operation. In the “ Hand Book of the economic products 
of the Punjab,” by Mr. Baden H. Powell, there is a list of marbles of which the following 
are the principal: (1) an inferior marble which, however, takes a good polish from Narnul, 
in the Pattiala territory; (2) grey marble from Bhunsi; (3) black marble from Kashmir; (4) 
white and veined marble from Sardi in Jhelum; (5) yellow marble from Manairi, Yusufzai. 
In the Narbada valley, the marble rocks, justly famous for the excessive beauty of the 
deep gorge cut through them by the river, consist of a tolerably pure white saccharine 
limestone. This is the strongest local development of the calcareous element which occurs 
with the schists in the Bijour series of rocks. 
The marble, except locally in some of the temples, has not been used for building 
purposes. It is much jointed on the surface, and has been a good deal crushed by tilting 
into the present vertical position of its beds and by the trap dykes which traverse it. 
But it seems probable that large blocks might be extracted, and it is possible that portions 
might be obtained of sufficiently fine quality for statuary purposes* but I am not aware of 
any attempt having been made to use it in this way. 
I must add, however, that according to Dr. Balfour’s Cyclopcedia, a block sent to the 
Paris exhibition of 1855 (?) was pronounced to be equal to Italian marble for statuary 
purposes. 
Several localities in Bengal might be mentioned, where more or less pure crystalline 
limestones occur, hut these are not of much economic importance. Silica, tremolite, and 
serpentine are the chief foreign minerals which occur in these crystalline calcareous rocks. 
In his work on building stones, Mr. Hull mentions among other localities Syepore, Gya, 
and Durha in Bengal as localities where marble occurs in India. The name Syepore (whence 
the mineral called Syeporite) has its origin in a clerical error, and the names should stand 
as Jaipore or Jaipur, as it is now spelt, and Jaipfirite. I am not aware of any marble being 
found at or near Gya, though the black basalt used in the temples there may very possibly 
have been so called by some visitor or antiquarian. As for Durha I am quite unable to trace 
any place bearing the name in Bengal proper. Possibly it may be Dura, near Bhurtpur, in 
the Agra district of the North-Western Provinces. If so, the marble in use there probably 
comes from Jaipur. 
In the IChasia Hills it is said that much of the nummulitic limestone would produce 
most durable and occasionally very handsomely veined marble. It would answer well for 
ordinary purposes, chimney-pieces, slabs for tables, garden seats, and for flooring tiles. 
In Southern India there are several well known localities where more or less ornamental 
and durable marbles are obtained; samples of these have been from time to time collected, 
* Some parts are obviously too silicious to be so employed. 
