HISTORT OF COAL DISCOVERIES. 3 



November 1874, and during the progress of the survey in the hills east 

 of the Disang, I had the advantage of that officer's cordial co-operation. 

 During the remainder of the cold weather of 1874-75^ and the early- 

 part of the following season, Mr. Coombes, Superintendent of the Sibsa- 

 gar Police, was in charge, and later on Captain Latouche, Assistant 

 Commissioner at Jorhat ; towards the close of the season, charge was 

 finally transferred to Mr. Pughe, then Superintendent of Police at 

 Sibsagar. To all of these officers I have to express my obligations 

 for their endeavours to smooth away, as much as possible, the diffi- 

 culties of surveying in a country where difficulties are exceptionally 

 numerous. 



HisTOEY OF Coal and Petkoleum discoveries in Upper Assam.* 

 The existence of coal in Upper Assam has been known from the 



Lieutenant E.WUCOX, ®^^^^^^* P^^^^^ ^* ^^^*i^^ occupation of the pro- 

 1825-28. vince. The first recorded notice that I am aware 



of is by Lieutenant Wilcox, who, in April 1825, accompanied a party of 

 the 46th Regiment up the Disang river to Borhat. He remarked that 

 the hills in the neighbourhood of that place consist of grey and yellow 

 sandstone, and states that " coal is found at no great distance,'^ but he 

 gives no details as to its mode of occurrence, or the exact locality in 

 which it had been discovered. 



In a subsequent expedition up the Dihing river. Lieutenant Wilcox 

 observed a seam of coal in the bed of the Buri Dihing at Stipkong, near 

 which petroleum rises to the surface. Far to the eastward the same 

 explorer again observed " thin strata of coal alternating with blue clay 

 in the sandstone rock'' on the north bank of the Dihing near Tumong 

 Tikrang, a village south-south-west from the snowy peak of Dapha 

 Bum.f 



* East of tlie Dhansiri River. 



t Asiatic Researches, Vol. XVII, pp. 322, 415, 420. 



( ^71 ) 



