ECONOMIC GEOLOGY. 87 



from Santak to the Mukh by river is 47 miles. By land; the distance 

 from the coal-field to Disang Mukh is 30 miles. 



The Janji field is a small and comparatively unimportant one, and 

 the coal is at the bottom of the valley. For some 



Janji. 



miles below it, the river flows through a rocky 

 gorge, where the stream is quite impracticable, and below that for a 

 considerable distance there are numerous rapids. The distance by land 

 to Amguri, where the navigation may be said to commence, is about 10 

 miles, and thence by water to the Mukh 35. By land from the coal to 

 the Brahmaputra is 38 miles. 



The Disai coal, as far as known, is of the soft crumbly kind, and 

 is near the base of the hills. The river is quite 



Disai, , „ . . 



useless for navigation, except, perhaps, in the rains. 

 From the coal-field to the Brahmaputra by land is about 26 miles. 



If, then, an attempt should be made to utilize existing water com- 

 munications for the transport of the Assam coal to the Brahmaputra, it 

 appears to me that the Makum field offers the greatest number of ad- 

 vantages. There are greater facilities for level workings there than in 

 any of the other fields, except the Dikhu valley, and some of the Makum 

 coal is more favorably placed for open workings than any I have seen 

 elsewhere — an important advantage if the out-turn were confined to a small 

 amount, such as could not be economically raised from regular mines 

 under skilled superintendence. With the exception of the beds at Jaipur, 

 the seams are closer to navigable water than those anywhere else. And, 

 although the Makum field is furthest of all from the Brahmaputra, the 

 Dihing is superior to any of the other streams in respect to navigability. 

 But if artificial means of communication should be provided, 

 whether by road, or tramway, or canal*, the lie of the coal with refer- 

 ence to mining and its nearness to the Brahmaputra, point to that in the 

 Dikhu valley as being the most favorably situated. 



* The construction of a canal is, I think, well worthy of consideration, on account of 

 the almost perfect flatness of the alluvial plains between the foot of the hills and the 

 Brahmaputra, and the abundant water-supply for such obtainable from the hiUs. 



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