Minerals of India

In the expanding economy of the country, the importance of popularizing knowledge of india's mineral resources and their exploitation, indigenours fabrication and export by our industrialists and entrepreneurs cannot be over emphasized. In the present compilation, Mrs. Wadia puts forth, in systematic form and simple language, information on minerals and metals of India.

After graduation and training as a teacher from Bombay University, Mrs. Meher D.N. Wadia worked as an educator for some years in institutions in Ahmedabad and Surat. One of her interests has been producation of popular scientific literature as an aid to general knowledge and adult education. She has published adaptations of elementary scientific treatises on geographical and geological subjects in Gujarati.

Dr. Srivastava who has revised the fifth edition is a fellow of Geological and Mining Society of India, member of the Mining and Geological Institute of India and fellow of the Geo-Chemical Society of India. He has more than 40 years of professional experience in carrying out geological mapping and mineral and ground water investigations in different parts of India.

MINERALS and metals form the life-blood of the world's present-day industrial civilization. India has lately awakened to this, her annual mineral production, which at the turn of the century was worth less than rupees 100 million has, since the Second World War, been stepped up to over rupees 2,200 million today. The importance of planning and development of industries based on minerals and metals as capable of bringing in ample dividends is now being realized. The National Book Trust, India's publication of the present manual is, therefore, quite timely as it will help the intelligentsia of the country to take a healthy interest in India's mines and minerals, a subject until lately beyond the purview of the average citizen.

The present book is not a text book of minerals, or a catalogue of the industrially utilizable fabricated mineral products of India. But it has been compiled with the object of bringing to the general public broad knowledge of the economic mineral substances found in the rocks of India, their occurrences and availability, mining and production, uses and their place in the national economy, for the present and the future. The compiler, Mrs. Meher D.N. Wadia, has constantly kept this objective in view as an educationist, and has planned the text accordingly. Her coordinated treatment of the subject material vis-a-vis India's in dustrial planning will, I am sure, prove interesting and informative to the general reader.

**Contents and Sample Pages**