TRANSACTIONS OF THE SECTIONS. 65 
worked; and since their first discovery large quantities of iron have been smelted 
with charcoal. 
After passing the districts in which the coal has been thus clearly exhibited, we 
proceed next to the Assam districts, also more or less continuous, and extending for 
about 350 miles chiefly along the south side of the Burhampooter ; the whole being 
divided into the two groups of Lower and Upper Assam, separated at Bishenath, 170 
miles above Calcutta. Six coal-fields are enumerated in the Upper district, and three 
in the Lower; but the latter, although it would seem not so promising, are looked 
on as scarcely less important in consequence of their greater accessibility. 
So far as details are concerned, the Lower Assam coal offers little positive informa- 
tion ; the indications consisting rather of rolled fragments drifted, than of distinct and 
well-marked beds. It is called lignite in a report from Lieut. Vetch; but both coal 
and lignite are terms frequently used without reference to any peculiar character of 
the mineral, or any geological position. Similar beds of coal or lignite to those found 
in Lower Assam, south of the Burhampooter, are also mentioned as occurring on the 
north in three of the streams flowing into that river from the Bootan range. The 
Upper Assam coal is manifestly of great interest, and likely to prove very important. 
It is associated with abundance of clay ironstone. 
About eighty miles above Bishenath, other beds, stated to be six feet thick, have 
been worked for the sake of trying the ceconomic value of the coal. It is described 
by the commander of one of the Assam Company’s steamers, in a letter dated 24th 
January, 1845, as far the best he ever had on board a steamer, and far superior to 
any coal in Calcutta. From the growing importance of the tea-trade from Assam, 
this is likely, therefore, to be of great value. Still further up the country there are 
several important beds, dipping, it would appear, at so high an angle, and placed so 
unfavourably with regard to present means of transport, that it would be difficult to 
work them. The other beds that appear in this district are exposed to the same 
difficulty; and the coal throughout Northern India appears to be in this respect un- 
favourably placed. 
, Passing on now to the other districts in India and the East, in which carboniferous 
_ rocks and beds of coal have been met with, I have to enumerate two, the Tenasserim 
- and the Arracan districts, which, from their vicinity to India and their geographical 
position, are of considerable importance. The former has been known for some 
_ years, and there are said to be four localities at which coal appears; but of these 
_ only one seems likely to prove of ceconomic value. From the accounts given of this 
coal there is every reason to conclude, that one of the beds is not of the carboni- 
_ ferous period ; and although another (on the Thian Khan) has been the subject of a 
far more favourable report, being called cannel coal, and stated by Mr. Prinsep to be 
_ an admirable coal for gas, there is yet much probability of the whole being of the 
tertiary period. ‘These beds have been described in the ‘Journal of the Asiatic So- 
ciety’ for 1838. 
In Arracan there are eleven beds of coal, but all of them are thin, and their posi- 
tion nearly vertical. They are said to be associated with sandstones, limestones and 
shales; but it is clear that they can at present be looked at only as indications, and 
_ not of any practical importance. 
_ Notices of some Fossil Mammalia of South America. By Prof. Owen, F.RS. 
Since the publication of his descriptions of the fossil mammalia collected by Mr. 
Darwin, the following additional species had come under observation. A new spe- 
cies of the gliriform genus of Pachyderms called Toxodon, was founded on an entire 
' lower jaw, with the intermaxillary part of the upper jaw of a specimen equalling the 
 Toxodon platensis in size, transmitted from Buenos Ayres. The new species, which 
Prof. Owen proposed to call Toxodon angustidens, is distinguished by the nearly equal 
size of the outer and inner incisors of the upper jaw, the transverse diameter of the 
inner or median one being two inches; and by the narrower transverse diameter of 
the inferior molars. Prof. Owen considered the characters of this second species of 
‘Toxodon as confirming in every respect his ideas of the affinities of the genus ex- 
pressed by the title, ‘ Description of the cranium of the Toxodon platensis, a gigantic 
extinct mammiferous animal, referable to the order Pachydermata, but with affinities 
_ to the Rodentia, Edentata, and herbivorous Cetacea,’ under which his original me- 
1846. EF 
