150 KHASI HILLS. 



stone, dipping very slightly to the North or West. This coal is at leai5t 

 two miles further from Burr-ghat than the coal at the village of Lakar 

 dong ; but the Khasis asserted that it could be conveyed to the river at 

 the same rate as from the village. 



Such is the mode of occurrence of this coal and of its associated 

 rocks. As regards the quality of the Lakadong coal, it is very similar 

 to that from Cherra. It burns briskly, blazes freely, leaves very little 

 ash, and possesses considerable heating and illuminating power. But 

 for domestic purposes, it is a remarkably good, lively, and cleanly coal, 

 like that from Cherra ; however, it is open to the serious objection of 

 being very brittle and disintegrating readily. The whole mass of the 

 coal is traversed by very numerous little cracks or fi.ssures, which tend 

 to split it up into smaller portions, and these fissures not preserving 

 that parallehsm and regularity which render the " backs" in most Eng- 

 lish coal such an advantage in the working of them, but traversing the 

 mass in every direction, it results that not only is there a considerable 

 waste in the amount of small coal produced by the excavation, but also 

 that the large coal is itself procured in blocks of irregular form, and 

 consequently ill-adapted for convenient stowage. 



This, with the fragile nature of the coal, will, I am convinced, so 

 far as sea-going steamers are concerned, fully counterbalance the ad- 

 vantages which this coal has over some other Indian coals as regards 

 heating power ; but this objection is much less forcible as regards river 

 steamers, or for stationary engines. 



As regards the quantity of coal existing in the field, it is difficult 

 to form anything like a very accurate estimate, owing to the great 

 irregularity of its development ; but we may, I think, fairly calculate 

 the quantity of coal easily accessible as being equal to one-half a square 

 mile with an average thickness of three feet, which would give about 

 1,500,000 cubic yards of coal, or about 40,500,000 cubic feet or 

 maunds. But, even granting that this estimate is beyond the actual fact. 



