10 THK COAL or ASSAM. 



thatj of some at least, the quality is unexceptionable. It only remains 

 for me to give a professional opinion upon the extent and placement of 

 these deposits. On both points my opinion is, on the whole, favorable. 

 This opinion is based entirely on direct evidence, independently of any 

 more remote geological consideration of the period to which the deposits 

 belong. From this latter point of view, indeed, the argument of ana- 

 logy would be adverse : I have, unfortunately, not been able to obtain the 

 conclusive evidence of fossils as to the age of these coal measures; but the 

 ;best opinion I can form from the comparison of the sections is in favor of 

 the coal belonging to the Nummulitic period, the same which hitherto in 

 India, as in the Cossyah Hills, the Salt range, and in Scinde, has more or 

 less disappointed our expectations of an extensively useful coal-formation. 

 There are two places prominently known in Upper Assam as coal- 

 Two fields 5 their posi- PJ*o<5"cing ; one is the neighbourhood of Jaipoor 

 *^^°"^- in the Seebsaugor District, and the other is in the 



vicinity of Makoom. In the latter the diggings of the Terap are much 

 the most extensive, and the only ones now worked. If, as I think is the 

 case, the coal beds in both localities belong to one and the same group of 

 rocks, it is probable that they are confluent somewhere in the hills 

 south of Jaipoor, and that thus the two localities would be but portions 

 of the same great coal-bearing region. At present, however, we must 

 treat them as distinct. The Jaipoor localities are in more or less con- 

 tinuous connection vdth those known to occur in the outer zone of the 

 hills to the south-west, up to and beyond the Dikhoo, and even, I believe, 

 to the Dunseeree. If, indeed, my conjecture as to the age of this coal is 

 correct, we may expect the connection to be traced into the Jynteeah and 

 Cossyah Hills ; but, as in such a position it might be regarded as value- 

 less, this question may be reserved for purely geological consideration. In 

 a north-eastern direction the band of rocks, which along the Seebsaugor 

 District forms the outer zone of the Naga hill-group, strikes across the 

 Deehing at Jaipoor to form the long spur, called the Tippum range, which 

 ( 396 ) 



