Martin,
You ask if the Cordoba Copper Company, which started the Mosaboni
copper mine in Bihar State, India, in 1924, had any interests in the
State of Kerala or in gold mining.
I think the answer is no. There were two principal gold mining companies
in India, Kolar Goldfields and Hutti Gold Mines, both in Karnataka state,
and I am not aware of any commercial links between these and Cordoba,
later Indian Copper Corporation.
Kolar Goldfields was nationalised by the Central Government, and is now
Bharat Gold Mines, while Hutti was nationalised by the Karnataka State
government. Through the 1980s the production of gold in India was about
1.8 to 2.2 tons a year.
Recent exploration has located a gold-bearing deposit in the Singhbhum
Thrust belt which hosts the copper deposits mined at Mosaboni and
related mines, but I am not sure if any gold is yet being mined there.
The one non-copper mining operation which Indian Copper was involved in
was the extraction of kyanite, a silicate mineral used in the manufacture
of refractories such as the porcelain for spark plugs, which is mined at
Lapso Buru.
I recall that when the monthly publication Industrial Minerals was launched
(in the early 1970s??) it carried an article on Lapso Buru kyanite. This
prompted letters to the editor from London dockers, complaining about the
large lumps of rock, some weighing well over one hundredweight, which
they had to man-handle when unloading the kyanite from ships' holds. So
the next month the editor published a photograph showing the transport
system used at Lapso -- as he took pleasure in pointing out to the burly
London dockers who complained in this way, every lump of Lapso Buru
kyanite started its journey to Britain on the head of one Indian woman.
Tony Brewis
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