44 TALCHEER COAL FIELD. 



The smaller or Atgurli basiu is in the immediate neighbourhood of 



Cuttack and extends for about 20 miles up the 

 The Atgurh basin. 



Mahanuddi to the West of the Station. 



The larger or Talcheer basin, which has been more specially examined, 



is about 50 miles North-west of Cuttack, and of 

 Talcheer basin. . ,, . ,. -i /. 



considerable size, extending nearly 70 miles from 



East to West, or rather, more nearly South-east to North-west, from the 

 East of Karakprasad on the Brahmini to beyond Rampur in Eehrakol, 

 with an average breadth of 15 to 20 miles, or between the parallels 

 85° 28' and 84° 20' East Longitude and 20° 50' to 21° 15' North Lati- 

 tude. It occupies almost the whole of the tributary Eaj of Talcheer 

 with portions of those of Denkenal, Bamrah, Rampur, Rehrakol, and 

 the forfeited state of Ungool. Almost the whole of the Northern boun- 

 dary, and a large part of the Southern, are formed by great parallel 

 faults, having in the former case an aggregate down-throw of upwards of 

 2,000 feet. 



The supposed equivalents of these rocks in other parts of India have 

 Age of these sedi- ^^^'^ referred by various observers to different 

 mentary rocks. geological epochs, and most recently by Dr. 



Carter and by Messrs. Hislop and Hunter, have been classed together 

 as one great group, referred to the oolitic age. Some of them are without 

 doubt contemporaneous with the coal-bearing rocks of the Damoodah 

 Valley, of Nagpur, &c., the fossils (all of them plants) being identi- 

 cal. Before enumerating or describing the proposed divisions of these 

 beds, it should be premised that the sections exposed are by no means 

 good enough to give satisfactory measurements. The general flatness 

 of ground over much of the country, the consequent shallowness of the 

 nullahs, and the great thickness of the alluvial deposits in many of the 

 valleys, prevent the rocks from being visible, except at intervals, in the 

 water-courses, which in a country of this character, so thickly wooded 

 and almost destitute of natural or artificial sections of any other kind, 



