RAJPIPLA is a Native State ruled by a Hindu sovereign. It is within the Bombay Presidency. between lat. 21° 23' and 21° 59' N., and long. 73° 5' and 74° E. Area (comprising 591 villages), 1514 square miles ; population (1881), 120,036, of whom about 60 per cent. are Bhils. Three fourths of the state are occupied by a continuation of the Satpura range, known as the Rajpipla Hills, nowhere exceeding 2000 feet above the sea. Alines of quartzose minerals are worked at Ratan pur, a village about 14 miles above the town of Broach. The climate is exceedingly unhealthy, malarious fevers being prevalent from September to February. Its chalcedonies, agates, onyx, cornelian, and bloodstone are called Cambay stones, from the place where they are mostly cut, and from which they are almost wholly brought to Bombay. They are found in a bed of blue clay, the detritus. probably, of the adjoining rocks. Shafts are pierced in this to the depth of from 30 to 35 f eet, and horizontal galleries run in any direc tion that suits the fancy of the miner ; the pebbles are distributed promiscuously, and do not appear to lie in veins or lodes. The galleries seldom exceed 100 yards in length ; they often run into those of other mines ; they are generally five feet in height, and four across. To each mine there are 13 men attached, who work by turns. Each man must send up so many basketfuls of earth and stones before he is relieved. The stones are collected in baskets, and drawn up by a rope run over a roller or pulley. A group of people await them at the mouth of the shaft, and examine them one after another by chipping each on a piece of stone ; the compact and fine-grained are the best, and the blacker the hue is at first, the redder it becomes after being burnt. There were at one time about 1000 miners enaployed, and each man carried home with him a basket of stones every evening. They were spread out on the ground, and for a whole year turned over every four or five days to the sun ; the longer they are so exposed the richer become their tints. In the month of May they are burnt. This operation is effected by placing the stones in black earthen pots or chatties. The pots are placed mouth under, a hole being pierced in the bottom of each ; over this is put a piece of broken pot. The pots are
arranged in single rows ; sheep's dung is the only fuel found to answer ; the fire is always lighted at sunset, and allowed to burn till sunrise. If any white spot appear on the surface of the pot, the burning is reckoned incomplete and the fire con tinued some time longer. On being removed, the stones that have flaws are thrown aside as useless, those not sufficiently burnt are kept for next year's burning, and the remainder are sold for exporta tion. Nearly the whole of the stones are cut at Cambay ; the greater part of them are made into beads. In the process, the stones are tint broken up into pieces of suitable sizo for the end they are desired to servo. Att iron spike is stuck into the ground, point upwards ; the stone is placed on this, and chipped with a hammer till nearly rounded ; it is then passed on to the polisher, who seizes it in a pair of wooden clams, and rubs it against a piece of sandstone placed in an in clined plane before him, turning it round front time to time till it assumes a globular form. It is then passed ou to the borer and polisher ; hole is drilled. Cambay enjoys celebrity for its agates, mocha-stones, cornelians, and all the chalcedonic and onyx family, all of them brought from Raj pipla, but worked up at Cambay into every variety of ornament,—cups, boxes, necklaces handles of daggers, of knives and forks, seals ete. Cambay stones, tho akeek of the natives o'f Bombay, and by Europeans called agates, include all kinds of quartz minerals. They are also obtained from the amygdaloid trap rocks drained by the Nerbadda and Tapti. The principal varieties sold in Bom bay are crystal, milk quartz, prase, a great variety of moss-stone, mocha-stone, fortification agate, chalcedony, cornelia.n, chrysoprase, heliotrope, onyx, obsidian, and very rarely amethyst. They pass in Europe and Americ,a for Scotch, Irish, Chamouni, Niagara and Isle of Wight pebbles, according to the place in which they are sold. These stones, however, abound in all trap countries, tho Brazils importing them as largely itS India into Europe, where the terms Brazilian and Indian agates are used indifferently by the trade.