INDIA, BEITISH. 



527 



during 1861-'G2 were Rs. 1,61,955-14 (a ru- 

 pee is about 46 cents), and in Bombay Rs. 

 1,50,971-3-5. 



The amount spent in the construction of 

 telegraph lines in India from 1850-'51 to 1860- 

 '61 inclusive is, Rs. 46,05,935-8-5^, exclusive 

 of cost of stores from Europe. Stores, freight, 

 instruction of assistants, passage money, &c., 

 amounted to 385,400 3s. 2d. for the same 

 period. Recently a new company also, called 

 the Oriental Telegraph Company, has been or- 

 ganizing, under the superintendence of Sir 

 Charles Bright and Mr. Latimer Clark, with a 

 system of telegraph similar in its constitution 

 to the Electric and International Company of 

 England. 



Immediately upon the completion of the Per- 

 sian Gulf submarine cable (early in 1864), Sir 

 Charles Bright and Mr. Latimer Clark will be 

 ready to enter upon the operations of the 

 Oriental Telegraph Company, commencing 

 their Indian line from Kurrachee, and work- 

 ing toward Bombay and Calcutta. 



The only coalfield of any considerable extent 

 in India known at present is that of Ranigunj 

 or Damooda, near Burdwan in Bengal, cover- 

 ing an area of about five hundred square miles. 

 There are some fifty collieries in this field, pro- 

 ducing yearly on an average about 300,000 tons 

 of coal. . The description produced is a variety 

 of non-coking bituminous coal ; but one great 

 objection to that worked in the Damooda field 

 is the presence of iron pyrites, and its constant 

 liability to spontaneous combustion, which ren- 

 ders it particularly unfitted for steamships. The 

 broadest seam yet discovered is at Kasta, where 

 the bed is thirty-five feet thick. Next in im- 

 portance to the Ranigunj field are the Nerbud- 

 da coal deposits. They are supposed to extend 

 over an area of fully three hundred square 

 miles ; but their distance at present from any 

 available market makes them but of little 

 practical use. As, however, iron ore is found 

 to exist in the same locality, the coal will 

 prove serviceable for smelting purposes, and 

 will thus enhance the value of the iron 

 mines. The best coal is found at a spot 

 called Mopani, where the beds have an av- 

 erage thickness of from seven to eight feet. 

 A company has already been formed for work- 

 ing these coal and iron deposits, and without 

 doubt, as the railway progresses toward that 

 part of India, the Nerbudda coalfields will 

 afford an ample supply, at a fair profit, to 

 the important line which in two or three 

 years may be completed as far as Jubbul- 

 pore. No workable coal has been found in 

 the Punjab or Northwestern provinces ; a few 

 patches of lignite only have been met with. 

 In Scinde a small mine was opened in the 

 Lynah Valley in 1856, by the railway com- 

 pany there ; but, owing to its irregularity and 

 probable want of sufficient age, it was aban- 

 doned. Neither in the Bombay nor Madras 

 Presidencies, nor in the Nizam's dominions, is 

 coal known to exist ; and the few black shales 



met with on the Godavery, which are incapa- 

 ble of combustion, cannot be said to come 

 under the denomination of coal. The entire 

 quantity supplied annually by the Ranigunj, 

 Rewah, Nerbudda, and other Indian coalfields, 

 does not exceed 400,000 tons. The Bombay 

 Presidency is now, it is said, undergoing for 

 the first time a geological examination on a 

 systematic scale ; but the strata known to pre- 

 vail over the greater part of its surface pre- 

 clude the idea of any good or workable coal 

 being found. 



The history of India, during the year 1863, 

 is, on the whole, uneventful. The country ad- 

 vanced through the impulse given by an event 

 which diverted to its people much of the wealth 

 formerly invested in American cotton, but the 

 internal administration was marked by no cor- 

 responding progress, and the result was a com- 

 mercial crisis unprecedented in intensity. The 

 brief administration of Lord Elgin was ended by 

 his death, on Nov. 20th, after a duration of only 

 20 months. Some of the English papers com- 

 plained that his administration had been marked 

 by an almost unbroken subserviency to the In- 

 dian Secretary of War, and that the growing 

 independence of the several provinces directly 

 subject to the English rule would have become 

 most dangerous to England, if a governor- 

 general like Sir John Lawrence had not been 

 appointed at the close of the year. ' 



Sir Charles Trevelyan was sworn in as Fi- 

 nancial Member of Council on '13th January. 

 Those who had feared to see a repetition of 

 the policy which resulted in his recall from 

 Madras were surprised to find thnt, while doing 

 full justice to his predecessors, Mr. Laing and 

 Mr. Wilson, he merely carried out the financial 

 reforms which they had begun. His budget 

 speech showed that the surplus of Mr. Laing's 

 last year, 1862-'63, was the largest India is 

 likely to see for a long time 936,925. The 

 surplus of the current financial year he esti- 

 mated at somewhat less, or 815,775, and dis- 

 posed of the whole except a margin of 480,- 

 775, by reducing the duties on wine, beer and 

 iron, and taking one per cent, off the four per 

 cent, income tax.* 



During the last three months of the year the 

 money market of both India and England suf- 

 fered from a scarcity of silver caused by the 

 absorption of very large sums by the Indian 

 peasantry in return for their cotton. The first 

 result of the high prices paid by England was 

 seen in a superabundance of capital at the 

 three Presidency cities. In Bombay, especially, 

 enormous fortunes were made, chiefly by Asi- 

 atics, some of whom used their wealth nobly in 

 works of benevolence, and a general mania for 

 the establishment of joint-stock companies with 

 limited liability, spread through society. But 

 soon this abundant capital was drained into the 

 interior to pay the already comfortable peas- 

 antry for their new cotton crop; it reached 

 them instead of resting with their agents and 

 money-lenders as usual, and it was hoarded or 



