ECONOMIC RESOURCES : COAL. 293 



are in progress, the old system of carriage still exists elsewhere, 

 too-ether with the waste this occasions. The salt is reduced to rough 

 spherical lumps, to prevent the corners being rubbed off during its rough 

 transport in open nettings or hair-cloth bags. So long as the merchants 

 prefer, and can obtain, the salt in blocks, it does not seem likely that 

 any steps will be taken to utilise the enormous quantity of valuable 

 salt now wasted. 



Coal. 



The coal of the Salt Range has formed one subject of a detailed 

 report by Dr. Oldham in the memorandum 

 on the mineral resources of the district, already 

 noticed. It occurs at eighteen or twenty localities, including Kala- 

 bagh, but at only a very few of these in fairly workable quantity. 

 The coal of the Salt Range proper generally comes from near the 

 base of the nummulitic rocks, and is most largely developed at a short 

 distance from Bhaganwala. It has been worked here, at Pid, and 

 to the westward at Samundri, besides small quantities being raised 

 at other places. The coal is not of bad quality in some places, but 

 the amount of the best kind is very small and becomes deteriorated 

 by mixture with the more sulphurous and shaly portions of the beds, 

 so that the fuel obtained falls to pieces and it is liable to spontaneous 

 combustion. 



The Kalabagh coal or lignite is of Jurassic age and of better 

 quality than the former; it is composed of portions of trees in a 

 fossilised state, not forming a bed, but distributed in both shales and 

 sandstones, from the former of which the coal collected for sale has been 

 obtained. 



As to quantity. Dr. Oldham estimated that there might be raised at 

 the Bhaganwala locality 16,20,000 maunds of coal, and at Kalabagh 

 some 45,000 maunds. It appears from the mineral statistics by 

 Dr. Oldham, in Vol. VII of the Memoirs of the Geological Survey, that 



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