THE COAL OF ASSAM.. 7 



these seemingly fair promises. I have not merely to give a qualified opinion 

 on the value of this coal^ but to affirm my disbelief in its very existence. 

 Wlien at Dibroogurh I had, in anticipation of my visit to the 

 Duphla Hills of Durrung, made a short trip to the Abor Hills, north of 

 Dibroogurh, I there found, somewhat to my surprise after the informa- 

 tion I had received from Captain Godwin Austin, a complete representa- 

 tion of the sections I was so familiar with in the north-western Hima- 

 laya, so far at least as the outermost fringe is concerned, which alone I 

 was able to visit. The first range of hills have a considerable elevation, 

 rising abruptly from the region of the Bhahiir, They are formed of 

 massive accumulations of soft, gray sandstone, exactly like the principal 

 rock of the well known Sivaliks, with occasional partings of mottled clays, 

 and passing upwards into great beds of conglomerate. The dip of the 

 strata is constant to northwards, towards the main hills; the lowest beds 

 thus showing at the outer base ; and from the frequent occurrence of slips, 

 forming bare cliffs on the south face of the hills, it is possible from a 

 little distance to judge with considerable certainty of the extension of 

 these rocks. Nests and strings of lignite are as common in this sand- 

 stone here as elsewhere, and it is these that have so frequently given rise 

 to reports of the discovery of coal. The conditions in the Duphla Hills, 

 north of Tezpoor, are exactly the same as I have just described. The 

 Deputy Commissioner had been to this locality a few days before my 

 visit, with the native who had supplied the twenty maunds of coal. 

 When he expressed his surpi'ise and annoyance at being shown these 

 miserable pockets of lignite, he was told that the quantity supplied had 

 been procured from a thick bed occm*ring some little distance up the river 

 gorges ; but these are only accessible with great difficulty, forming as they 

 do a succession of deep pools between sheer cliffs of rock, and of rapids 

 over great boulders ; so Captain Lamb had to return, leaving orders that 

 boats should be in readiness to take me to the mine. The natives, how- 

 ever, saved themselves this unnecessary trouble by confessing to me that 

 the story of the thick bed was an invention, and that all the coal sent 



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