Note 229 — Chapter IV · THE PROTO-CHALCITIC OR COPPER AGE OF WEAPONS.

Prinseps’ Essays (London, 1858), vol. i. p. 222, pl. xliv. fig. 12, and Journ. R. As. Soc. Bengal, vol. vii. pl. xxxii. fig. 12. Long descriptions of copper smelting in India are found in Science Gleanings, pp. 380 et seq., No. 36, Dec. 1831, Calcutta, and in Percy (Metall. p. 387); the latter by Mr. H. F. Blanford, of the Geol. Survey, who made especial studies in Himalayan Sikkim and the Nepaulese Tirhai. The workmen, who are of low caste, win the stone in small blast-furnaces about three feet high, burning charcoal and cow-chips. They work not only the easily reducible carbonates, but sulphuretted ores, copper pyrites, with a mixture of mundic (iron pyrites).