J 92 BLAXKOKD : GEOLOGY OF WESTERN S1ND. 



PART III. 



CHAPTER IX.— ECONOMIC GEOLOGY. 



This will be a very short Chapter, for the valuable minerals of Sind, 

 so far as is hitherto known, are very few in number, and, with the ex- 

 ception of building' stones and limestone, none are abundant. 



Small quantities of coal or lignite have been found in various 



places amongst the shales and sandstone beds of 

 Lignite. . , . 



' the Ranikot group, but in only one instance has 



anything more than a mere layer, a few inches in thickness, been 

 detected. This exceptional case was at Lainyan (Lynyan, or Leilan), 

 about 27 miles north-north-west of Kotri, and 15 miles from the 

 right (west) bank of the Indus. The geology of the neighbourhood 

 has been described in Chapter VII, and the details concerning the 

 coal mine have already been published in a previous volume 1 of these 

 " Memoirs." It is said that two seams were met with, the upper being 

 in one place nearly 6 feet thick ; the lower was very thin, not more 

 than a foot. 



A shaft was put down by Mr. Inman, who was in charge of the 

 exploration, in 1857, and the coal, which was first discovered in a well, 

 was found to be 5 feet 9 inches thick. This thickness, however, dimi- 

 nished rapidly to the east, north, and west, and when galleries had been 

 driven into the seam to a short distance, it was found useless to continue 

 working, as the coal thinned out. In a deeper shaft sunk to the south- 

 east, at a distance of 100 yards, for the purpose of intersecting the seam, 

 the latter had dwindled away to a thin layer, so insignificant that it 

 was passed through in the shaft without being recognized. At the out- 

 crop of the beds associated with the coal-seam, 250 to 300 yards south- 

 west of the shaft, the seam is only represented by a bed of slightly 

 carbonaceous shale. In short, as was shown by a discussion of all the 



1 Vol. VI, p. 13. These details are taken from a report to the Government of Bom- 

 bay, by whom I had been deputed to examine the locality. 



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