Page:Provincial geographies of India (Volume 4).djvu/80

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MINERALS
[ch.

States, but none of these deposits is rich. Stibnite is used by oriental beauties for blackening the eye-brows.

Barytes, Heavy-spar or Sulphate of Barium, as it is variously called, has been discovered in considerable quantity at Bawdwin in the Northern Shan States, and is used as a flux in the smelting of the silver-lead ores. Barytes can also be used as a white pigment and as a body for certain kinds of paper and cloth.

Bismuth in small quantities is associated with the antimony found in the hills opposite Moulmein, and occurs in considerable amount at one spot in the mines of Bawdwin. Compounds of the metal are employed for medicinal purposes, and the metal itself is a constituent of certain alloys with an unusually low fusibility.

Burma is well off in Building stones. Limestone in almost unlimited quantity but of a somewhat brittle tendency occurs in the vicinity of Moulmein; another band of good quality is known in the Bassein district. A chocolatecoloured limestone has been quarried near Zibingyi between Mandalay and Maymyo. A beautiful white marble comes from the Sagyin Hills north of Mandalay, and is much used in the manufacture of carved images of Buddha and for ornamental purposes by the Burmans; a similar marble occurs in large quantities at Kyauksè, south of Mandalay, and in the Ruby Mines sub-division. The "Plateau" limestone of the Shan plateau is, most of it, only fit for roadmetal. Laterite is a rusty-red rock and derives its name from its quality of being easify cut up into rectangular blocks (Latin, later, "a brick"); the great bulk of the Burma supply comes from the Irrawaddy valley. Yellow, purple and pink sandstones are quarried near Toungoo. The granitoid gneiss from the Thatôn quarries has been largely used on the Burma railways and for land reclamation in Rangoon. Lime is manufactured from limestone at Tônbo, not far from Mandalay, at Zibingyi and at Thayetmyo.