COAL AND IRON OF CUTTACK. 5 



" accident, were allowed to drop on their passage through the air, 



" when they alighted in their present position," is quoted (p. 312.) 



Subsequently to the publication of Mr. Stirling's paper, I do not find 



any notice of the district, untU, in the year 1837, 



Lieutenant Kittoe an- i_,ieutenant Kittoe announced the discovery of 



nounces discovery oi coal. -^ 



extensive beds of coal in Ungool and Hindooe 

 (Hindole), near the Kursooa and Byturnee streams. He states, that the 

 coal and iron mines occur together.* In the following year (February 

 1838), he gave a section of a hiU called Newraj to the West of the 

 Station of Cuttack, where he expected that coal would be found. 



He makes the hill to be traversed by a large dyke of " dark-green tra- 

 " chyte, of a somewhat coarse glassy character, with minute vesicles,"f but 

 on referring to the specimens which accompanied his paper, in the collec- 

 tion of the Asiatic Society, I can find nothing to countenance this view. 

 On the other hand, the very marked and total absence of trap dykes travers- 

 ing the coal-bearing rocks of this district, to which reference will be found 

 below, makes the occurrence of such volcanic rocks more than doubtful. 



Lieutenant Kittoe was subsequently deputed by the then existing 

 Coal Committee to search for coal in these districts, and seems to have 

 been quite unsuccessful Indeed, from the account of his trip, the 

 examination and description of the many and highly interesting anti- 

 quities of the District, for the description of which he possessed very 

 admirable qualifications, would appear to have engaged his chief atten- 

 tion. He found no coal, but stated his opinion that coal could be found 

 at some depth below the surface.^ On what grounds this opinion was 

 founded, he does not state. 



In January 1842, Lieutenant Righy, then Executive Engineer, for- 

 warded to the Asiatic Society specimens of the building stones and other 

 useful materials of the district, and in February 1843, the same Society 



* Journal Asiatic Society, Bengal, VoL VU. p. 320. 

 t Ibid, p. 152. 

 + Ibid, p. 679. 



