68 A. Rea— Pre-historic Burial-places in Southern India. [No. 2, 
those from Madura. A few were submitted to Dr. Hunter, then in 
charge of the School of Arts at Madras. His opinion on the “ glaze ” 
or “ gloss ” was that “the surface is not glazed, but is merely polished 
by rubbing it with the juice of Toothee or Abatilon Indicum, a mucil¬ 
aginous juice, somewhat like gum, that is used by the natives at the 
present day to give a gloss to black earthenware. The surface can be 
scratched with a knife, though it resists water. After rubbing the sur¬ 
face with the juice, the vessel is again fired, and a species of smear is 
thus produced which resists acids and water.” “ Another method 
of producing a smear is in use in India, viz., rubbing the vessel with 
mica ground in water, and exposing it to heat.” This last method may, 
I believe, very possibly have been adopted in Madura, for most of the 
articles show small pieces of mica adhering to various parts of the sur¬ 
face. The beads found in these Salem tumuli would seem—from the 
description Dr. Hunter gives* of them—to also resemble those before 
mentioned. He says : “ They are made of carnelian, ornamented with a 
pure white enamel of considerable thickness, which has been let into the 
stone by grinding the pattern, filling in probably with oxide of tin and 
exposing to heat. The enamel is very hard, cannot be touched with a 
knife, and is not acted on by a strong nitric acid. The small beads are 
made of white carnelian and icespar.” 
No description of the designs engraved on the surfaces is given,!* 
so I cannot compare them in this respect; but the material and method 
of inserting the enamel would seem to have been the same in both cases. 
The large urns excavated at Salem were of the common round kind, and 
many swords and other iron weapons were found in the tombs. They 
had thus probably been used by warriors or hunters. In only one of 
the Madura examples, at Dadampatti, did I find a portion of an iron 
sword. The absence of such weapons from their sepulchres would thus 
seem to show that the people in these parts of Madura had been a pas¬ 
toral race. 
Megalithic Remains near Kodaikanal. 
Palmi Hills Kistvaens. 
There are quite a number of groups of kistvaens scattered about 
the sides of the valley west from the Perumal Peak ; these have been 
generally noticed in Mr. Sewell’s Topographical Lists cf Antiquities 
(Volume T, p. 288). In company with Mr. Turner, I visited one, which 
had been referred to by Bishop Caldwell. It is known as Arasi Parai, 
# lb, p. 6, para, II, 3. 
f They may probably be in the photographs, but the copy I had did not liav e 
these. 
