28 THE COAL OF ASSAM. 



India^ in the region of the Himalayas. Aud it is certain that its orig-iual 

 source is for the j)resent beyond the rang-e of investigation. 



All Upper Assam is in fact girded by a broad zone of rocks^ the 

 Sub-Himalayan Series^ from which^ unless experience elsewhere, and 

 appearances here^ deceive us, very little is to be expected. Beyond this 

 zone, any thing, unless of the most precious kind, must be out of reach 

 of profitable extraction^ besides being at present beyond our grasp. 



The word j5?«?^ means, I am told, a spring ; but it is applied to 

 places where this sense is not clearly applicable. 

 The most general signification of the term is, a 

 spot to which wild animals resort for some purpose best known to them- 

 selves, apparently to obtain substances having medicinal virtue. In the 

 northern hills, on the Deijmoo and the Borgung, the pungs shown to me 

 were mere salt-licks, bare surfaces of the soft Sub-Himalayan rocks, on 

 which alternations of sun and moisture develop a faint efflorescence. 

 The greater number of the pungs occur on or about the outcrop of the 

 coal-measures. In some, as that 8 miles east of Jaipoor, the only thing to 

 be detected is the slightly sulphuretted mud derived from the decom- 

 position of the shales, or the slightly chalybeate water oozing from the 

 same. In some, as that at Gabaroo (which is on an anticlinal axis of Sub- 

 Himalayan rocks), there is a small discharge of mineral water with some 

 gas. At the Namchik there is little water discharged, but more gas 

 and a little petroleum. On the Makoom River there is a very copious 

 discharge of inflammable gas with more of petroleum. The Namba pung 

 has a very large flow of water, nearly at scalding temperature, and also 

 much gas, both being sulphuretted. This spring occurs close to crys- 

 talline rocks, over which there seems to be but a thin covering of sand- 

 stone and limestone. The only saline spring I saw was near Asaloo"; 

 it seems to be on the same geological line w ith others in the Naga 

 Hills to the north-east, in the upper valley of the Namchik, and 

 intermediately. 

 ( 414 ) 



