Chap. I. Minerals.The most important, industrially, of the minerals of the district is manganese ore. The mining of this is referred to on p. 125 below. Manganese. Iron.In many villages in the Umarkót, Kótapád, Rámagiri and Koraput tánas of the Jeypore estate iron ore is rudely smelted by the natives in the usual vray for the manufacture of implements and tools, but apparently no large or continuous out-crop of ore exists.
Graphite.Graphite is commonly used for giving a finish to the ordinary earthen pots of the district. It is said to be found in the Mérangi, Kásipuram and Sálúr zamindaris and at a spot seven miles to the north-east of Narasapatam, but no clear account of its distribution or qualities has yet been published and all that can be said is that it has never yet been exploited with commercial success.
Limestone.The crystalline limestone at Guptésvara and the Borra Cave is referred to in the accounts of those places on pp. 260 and 285.At the former the Koláb cuts its way through beds of grey, argillaceous limestone which in some spots has been dissolved away by the running water and formed into fantastic pillars, bloes perchés, circular caverns and wide arches.
Steatite.Coarse grey steatite (potstone) outcrops at numerous points west and south-west of Jeypore, and at Ontagaon, three miles from that town, is quarried for buildings and for the manufacture of images of the Hindu gods. It also occurs on the road between Boipariguda and Rámagiri, and on the Malkanagiri road, four or five miles south of the Kollar bungalow.
Sapphirine.Sapphirine, which hitherto has been found only at Fiskernās on the west coast of Greenland, was discovered by Mr. Middlemiss 1½ miles south-south-west of Pádéru on the bridle-path to Gangaráz Mádgole.
A meteorite.On the 23rd January 1870 a meteorite fell in the village of Nedagolla, five miles south of Párvatipur. It was rescued from the villagers, who had put it in their temple and were doing worship to it, by Colonel Saxton of the Topographical Survey, and was found to be a meteoric iron of 10 lb. weight.1[1] Stony meteorites are very common, but this was the first iron one known in peninsular India. A second, weighing 35 lb.,was discovered (near Kodaikanal) in 1899.- ↑ 1 Progs. of R.A.S.B., 1870, 64.
