Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 41, Number 55, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 March 1909 — Stone Carriers of India. [ARTICLE]

Stone Carriers of India.

Recently an interesting water impounding scheme has been carried to successful completion in southern India at the Mari-Kanave gorge upon the Vedarati River in Mysore state. When constructional work was In full swing more than 5,000 natives were employed and the undertaking offer.edj3k.jaoy el and Interesting example of the cheapness of manuaTlabor as compared with the mechanical appliances. In India there exists a class of lamorers generally described as “nowgunnies,” or professional stone carriers, who, owing to their capacity for hard work, are in great demand foi such enterprises as this. They are of powerful physique and possess considerable stamina. They will work for ten hours a day and transport from 70 to 150 pounds of stone a man. They form gangs according to the character of the work in hand, ranging from two, four, eight, twelve to sixteen men a unit. Although such transportation seems somewhat slow in comparison with the possibilities of handling plants, yet they prosecute their task very energetically and the scale of pay, ranging from 10 to 16 cents a man a day, is so low as to render such labor far cheaper than mechanical transport.. Indeed, a complete installation of the latter was laid down a cable being stretched across the gorge over the site, bringing the stone direct from the quarries on the hillsides to the site ready for setting, but this had to be abandoned owing to its being far more expensive than the “nowgunny” labor. These mqp carried the masonry from the end of the railroad track connecting the site of the barrage with the quarries to Its destination and placed it in position—Scientific American.