Numerous iron villages and hamlets are found along the western flanks of tho Nullamallays, and several of these furnaces are always at work, the metal being in demand for ploughshares and other agricultural implements, though not for tires of wheels, for which it is found unsuitable. Besides Nerjeo stone, the district abounds in serpentine.
Iron-ore, hard and compact, of a light bluish colour, and of excellent quality, occurs in great abundance at Timmericottah; brown iron-ore near the Guticondah ; iron-ore in crystals and par allelipods on the surface of rising ground about three miles from Gurjal.
From the neighbourhood of Bomalapur, six or eight miles north of Dorenal in the Guntur dis trict, and all the way to Gompedala near Doopaud for seven or eight miles, the ground is nearly all iron-sand. It is washed and smelted at Rama poliam near Dorenal.
The most prevalent iron-ores of the Hyderabad territories seem to be the rusty brown, red, and yellow ochres; iron or steel sands with manganese, and specular or glance ores,—none of the latter, however, are magnetic. The black, brown, and red cellular iron-ores are abundant. Red haematite is found in the iron clay near Kondapur, and is used in the manufacture of the Wootz steel.
The magnetic iron-ore employed for ages in the manufacture of the damask steel used by the Persians for sword-blades, is obtained from schist near Kona-Samudram around Deemdoortee, where the ore is extensively distributed. The minute scales of iron are diffused in a sandstone-looking gneiss or micaceous schist, passing by insensible degrees into hornblende slate, and sometimes con taining amorphous masses of quartz. The strata are much broken up and elevated, so that the dip and direction are in no two places the same, and bear no relation to the mountains in the north. The iron has the remarkable property of being obtained at once in a perfectly tough and malleable state, requiring none of the complicated processes to which British iron must be subjected previous to its being brought into that state. Mr. Wilkinson found it to be extremely good and tough, and considered it superior to any English iron, and even to the best descriptions of Swedish. The Persian merchants, who frequented the iron furnaces of Kona-Samudram, are aware of the superiority of this iron, and informed Dr. Voysey that in Persia they had in vain endeavoured to imitate the steel formed from it.
Ores, powerfully affecting the magnet, exist in great quantity at Taygur, a village of the Konkan.
The irou-ore of 1?ewa Kanto was in former times abundantly worked in the Zillahs of Naru kot, Palanpur, Simudra, and Bhilod.
The Azuria mines in Jubbutpur are situated on a hill consisting of iron-ore found at If feet from the surface, and extending over an area of about 60,000 yards square and 30 feet deep. The ore
exists in thin flakes of a grey-iron colour and metallic lustre. The ore and charcoal are thrown in small quantities every half-hour into an earthen furnace 5 feet high and 3 feet diameter. A part of the bottom of the furnace is filled with fuel only ; this being kindled, a pair of bellows is applied to raise the heat, and a passage made at the side of the furnace for the incited metal to run out. Four maunds (320 lbs.) of ore and 2f maunds of charcoal aro daily used in a furnace ; the fuel is used in the proportion of 5-8ths or 62 per cent. of the ore for smelting, and 1-5th more for refining the metal. A furnace furnishes daily 2 =wilds (160 lbs.) or 50 per cent. of the crude iron from 4 maunds of the ore; this, when forged, yields 30 seers, or nearly 19 per cent. of wrought iron. The entire cost of the pure metal obtained amounts to Rs. 1.13 per maund, including labour and materials.
Iron-ore, in the form of silicious peroxide, occurs at Tendukhera, Narsingpur. The ore actually worked is a large vein or lode in the limestone of the great schist formation, and the only rock in its immediate vicinity is hard grey and blue crystalline limestone. It occurs to the north of the Nerbadda, in the open flat country between the river and the Vindhya Hills, and at one or two other places in the neighbourhood, also at Mohpani, not far from Tendukhera. The iron is smelted in small clay furnaces, blown by goat-skin bellows, worked by the hand. It is obtained in small lumps or blooms called cutcha or raw iron, and is afterwards reheated and hammered, and then sold as pucka or finished iron. Intermixed with the raw iron as it comes from the furnace, is a sort of crude steel, which is carefully selected and used for the manufacture of tools and agricultural implements. The ore is largely smelted at Tendukhera, about two miles from the mines, where, during the eight dry months of the year, about sixty furnaces are worked. About 5 tons 3 cwt. of iron-ore and 5 tons 12 cwt. of charcoal are used for the manu facture of two tons of pucka or finished iron. The ore contains, upon an average, about 40 per cent. of iron ; it is very fusible. The ore is obtained by means of pits sunk from 30 to 40 feet, through the alluvium of the valley, to the ore. They are washed in during the rains, and require to be resunk yearly. The pucka iron sells at from 5 to 6 rupees (10 shillings) per goan or bullock-load of 3 maunds, equal to 24 bundles, or from £4, 10s. to £5, 8s. per ton. From the iron of these mines, about 1840, a very good suspension bridge was built near Saugor.