]() OLDHAM: GEOLOGY OF MANIPUR AND NAGA HILLS. 



The former I had no opportunity of examining, 



Kasora escarpment. 



but as the two form one continuous escarp- 

 ment broken through by the gorge of the Napunga whatever re- 

 marks I shall have to make as to the one will be equally applicable 

 to the other. The Kasom ridge is composed of regularly bedded 

 sandstones with, in the part accessible to observation, but few argilla- 

 ceous beds ; the thickness actually examined amounted to 1,500 feet, 

 and in the hills on the Burma side of the crest there must be at 

 least as much again, making a total thickness of over 3,000 feet. 

 The sandstones have a moderate dip to the east, averaging about 20°, and 

 in them plant remains and patches of coaly matter, which have given 



rise to the rumours of coal in the Angoching hills 

 No coal. 



noticed by more than one of the Political Agents 



stationed at Manipur, are not infrequent; there is however but little 



hope of finding workable coal, the beds corresponding to the Nahan band 



of the Sub-Himalayas in which similar fragments of lignite have but too 



often raised false hopes of mineral wealth. To the north of the Kasom 



escarpment there is a low gap over which the sandstones have been 



denuded, and the crest of the ridge is occupied by rocks of (probably) 



•cretaceous age ; to the north of this gap rises the Kachaophung, which is 



structurally on the continuation of the Kasom ridge ; here the rocks 



were similar to those of the Kasom, but in addition to abundant, though 



imperfect, plant remains, fragments of fossil resin 

 Fossil resin. 



were found in one of the beds, pointing to a prob- 

 ably contemporaneous origin for the amber dag in Upper Burma. 



20. Looking northwards from the Kachaophung the general ap- 



„ . „ pearance of the country is very different from 



Probable extension of L . . 



■upper tertiaries to the that to the south, the hills being much barer and 

 north. 



the southern faces often precipitous, the beds, too, 



looking from the south, seemed to have a gentle dip to the northwards. 



It would seem from this that the boundary of the upper tertiaries here 



trends westward, and that instead of merely occupying a narrow strip 



between the older rocks and the alluvium of the Ningthi valley, they 



( 226 ) 



