CHAPTER XI

MINERALS

FAR into the field of Indian economic geology it is of
course impossible to enter. We can only skirt round the
edge of it, and note the geographical distribution of a few
of the most important of these mineral productions which
from earliest history have made India famous, and Indian
trade the desire of the nations. Recent examination of
the gold-bearing fields of the peninsula only serve to
prove that we know but little more about them than was
known many centuries ago. Ancient mines have been
driven through the upper strata of the soil in some parts
of India to an extent which renders many acres of land
analogous to a huge rabbit warren. Sometimes shafts
are sunk straight and deep through beds of quartz, with
sides so truly vertical that it is difficult to conceive what
the class of instruments may have been with which they
were constructed.
Gold and precious stones were accumulated and
hoarded in India from so early a time that it is probable
that for very many centuries of the world’s existence India
was regarded as the only source of such treasures. We are
now told that the ophir of Solomon was in Western India,
chiefly for the reason that it is associated with ivory and
apes and peacocks as articles of commerce. However
that may be, it is in connection with precious metals and
precious stones that ancient history and tradition chiefly
concern themselves with the mineral wealth of India.
The far more valuable economic products, such as coal
and salt, created no demand in Old Testament days. The
star of India’s natural wealth has paled in later years
before the magnificence of gold finds in Australia, in
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