NELLORE  , a

town and district of India, in the Madras presidency . The town is on the right bank of the Pennar river, and has a station on the East Coast railway, 109 M . N. of Madras city . Pop . (1901) 32,040 . There are United Free Church, American Baptist and Catholic missions . The DISTRICT OF NELLORE has an area of 8761 sq. m . It comprises a tract of low-lying land extending from the base of the Eastern Ghats to the sea . Its general aspect is forbidding: the coast-line is a fringe of blown sand through which the waves occasionally break, spreading a salt sterility , over the fields . Farther inland the country begins to rise, but the soil is not naturally fertile, nor are means of irrigation readily at hand . About one-half of the total area is cultivated; the rest is either rocky waste or is covered with low scrub jungle . The chief rivers are the Pennar, Suvarnamukhi and Gundlakamma .

They are not navigable, but are utilized for irrigation purposes, the chief irrigation

work being the anicut across the Pennar . Nellore, however, is subject both to droughts and to floods . Copper was discovered in the western hills in 1801, but several attempts by European capitalists to work the ore proved unremunerative, and the enterprise has been abandoned since 1840 . Iron ore is smelted by indigenous methods in many places, but the most important mining industry is that of mica . Salt is largely manufactured along the sea-coast . Nellore, with the other districts of the Carnatic, passed under direct British administration in 1801 . The population in 1901 was 1,496,987 showing an increase of 2.3% in the decade . In 1904 a portion of the district was transferred to the newly formed district of Guntur, reducing the remaining area to 7965 sq. m., with a population of 1,272,815 . The principal crops are millets, rice; other food grains, indigo and oil-seeds . The breed of cattle is celebrated . The East Coast railway, running through the length of the district, was opened throughout for traffic in 1899 . The section from Nellore town to Gudur, formerly on the metre gauge, has been converted to the standard gauge .

Previously the chief means of communication with Madras was by the

Buckingham canal . The sea-borne trade is insignificant .