MEMOIRS 



GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF INDIA. 



Preliminary Notice on the Goal and Iron of Talcheer in the Tributary 

 Mehals of Cuttack. By Thomas Oldham, A. M., F. R. S., G. 8., &c., 

 Superintendent of Geological Survey of India, &c. 



A brief notice of previously existing knowledge regarding the reported 

 Coal Field of the Tributary Mehals will prove interesting, before enterino' 

 on the detailed report of the geological structure of the district. 



The earliest notice of the Cuttack district with which I have met is in a 



Stirling's account of valuable paper by A. Stirhng, Esq., entitled " An 



"^°*" Account, Geogi-aphical, Statistical and Historical, 



of Orissa Proper, or Cuttack:" published in the Asiatic Researches of 



Bengal, Vol. XV., p. 163, 1825. 



Although chiefly devoted to the description of the antiquities and po- 

 litical condition of the district, some few geological facts are also given. 

 The general physical aspect of the country is thus described : — " An 

 " extensive little explored region on the West, 



Physical featurea, ^ • n r- \ •^^ 



" consisting chiefly of hills and forests, intersected 

 " by many fertile plains and valleys, and a plain level country extending 

 " from the foot of that barrier to the sea, evidently of alluvial formation, 

 " the imiform surface of which is not disturbed by a single rocky eleva- 

 " tion throughout its whole extent, nor does a single stone occur between 

 " the beds of iron-clay lying on the Western frontier and the ocean, 

 " if we except the curious spheroidal concretions of calcareous matter, or 



