OCCUPATIONS AND TRADE
In the Agency, oils are made by squeezing the seeds between two boards. In the plains, imported kerosene is almost universally employed for lighting, but in the Agency castor and (more rarely) ippa oils are mostly used. The former is made by first roasting and then boiling the seed and skimming off the oil as it floats to the top; the latter by pressing the berries of the ippa tree which form after the flower has fallen. For cooking, gingelly (and to a less extent niger) oil is used both on the plains and in the Agency.
Tanning of hides and skins is carried on in several tanneries round Vizianagram and in one at Jeypore. The industry, as usual, is in the hands of Musalmans, and it presents no special points of interest.
The minerals of the district afford but little employment to its people. The manufacture of salt is referred to on p. 183 below. Iron used to be extensively made from the local ores1[1] and is still smelted on a small scale in a few places in the Jeypore country. Licenses have been granted for prospecting for graphite, which is much used for giving a finishing polish to the ordinary earthen pots of the district, but so far no commercial exploitation of it has been successful.
The only mineral, besides salt, which now provides occupation for any considerable body of people is manganese. The existence in the district of this substance was first brought to notice in 1850, when it was erroneously supposed to be an ore of antimony.2[2] It was first mined in 1892 by the Vizianagram Mining Company, which owes its existence to Mr. H. G. Turner, Collector here from 1881 to 1889. This company has still practically a monopoly of the trade and is working at present at two principal 'centres; naniely, Kódúr (including the adjacent villages of Garividi, Duvvám, Déváda and Sadánandapuram), three miles south-west of Chipurupalle, the mines in which were opened in 1892 and in 1904 produced 12,000 tons of ore; and Garbhám in the Gajapatinagaram taluk, where work was begun in 1896 and the output from which in 1904 was 41,000 tons. The mines are large open excavations — the biggest at Kódúr is a huge pit 105 feet deep and 88,000 square feet (over two acres) in extent at the bottom — and contain no underground workings. The ore occurs mainly in veins, which are visible on the surface and usually dip down without diminishing in richness. The ore and earth are taken to the top{center|125}}
