9 HUGHES: DALTONGANJ COAL-FIELD. 
There is a succession of isolated hills and hill ranges, and with the 
exception of the river valleys of four or five of the larger streams, there 
are no open areas of any extent which could properly be designated 
plains. 
The average level of the country is about 1,200 feet above the sea, 
but the highest peaks of the hill range south of the valley of the U'rangá 
are over 9,000 feet. The contour of the hills is principally dependant 
upon the nature of the rocks of which they are, in part or in whole, made 
up; those capped by laterite or sandstone having invariably a flattened 
summit, whilst those consisting entirely of crystalline rocks present 
sharp backed ridges and conical peaks which give them a broken and 
rugged aspect. 
The greater proportion of the hills is composed exclusively of 
metamorphic rocks, but in the west and south-west, in the neighbourhood 
of the Kanhar river, some of them are capped by massive sandstones 
and laterite. 
The prevalent run of the hill ranges is east and west,—a direction 
more or less parallel with that of the scarps of the Chota-Nagpur and 
Hazaribagh table-lands. 
DRAINAGE. 
In a country so hilly as Palámaun, it follows that streams are innu- 
merable. There are, however, only two principal rivers, the Koel and 
the Kanhar. Into these, the entire rain that falls in the district, and 
which travels along fluvial channels, finds its way eventually to mingle 
with the waters of the Sone. 
The Kanhar drains the country to the west, and, flowing northwards, 
joins the Sone some miles to the east of the old fort of Agori-khas. 
The Koel has two large affluents,—the Amanat and the Utranga ; 
and in the valley of each coal-measure rocks occur. - 
( 826 )) 
