GEOLOGY OP SIND. 15 



thing like the outcrop of a bod of coal, nnd then it was very irregular, of small thickness, 

 and appeared to thin out within a very few yards. But not only is the thickness of this bed 

 irregular, but the same is remarkably the case with many of the small beds of shale which 

 occur. In fact here, as at the Lynyan, the rocks generally are irregularly stratified and vari- 

 able in thickness. Moreover, the more shaley, and especially the more carbonaceous beds, so 

 abound in iron pyrites that they are largely dug out by the Beloochees, and exposed in damp 

 places, for the purpose of manufacturing alum from them, the production of the alum being 

 due to the presence of the sulphur of the pyrites, 



Were a coal bed discovered in such a position, there could be scarcely a doubt but that 

 it would abound in iron pyrites, and that it would thin out within a short distance ; in fact 

 it would be precisely similar to that formerly worked at the Lynyan, and equally worthless. 



As, therefore, this formation preserves the same characteristics over a distance of at 

 least 30 miles, there appears every probability of its peculiarities being characteristic and 

 persistent throughout, and those peculiarities are inconsistent with the occui-rence of seams 

 of workable coal. 



Excessive irregularity, and, in general, the abundance of iron pyrites, are, indeed, noto- 

 riously characteristic of the numerous deposits of coal which have from time to time, and 

 in various parts of India, been discovered in the Nummulitic formation. 

 ********* 



Bombay, 

 The 23rd December 1863, 



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