MEMOIRS 



OF THE 



GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF. INDIA. 



On the Geological Structure and Relations of the Banigant Coal 

 Field, Bengal. By William T. Blanford, f. g. s., Geological 

 Survey of India. 



Part I. 

 GEOLOGY OF THE RANIGANJ FIELD. 



Chapter I. — Sketch of previous knowledge of the Geology of the Field. 



Long after the Geology of other portions of India had attracted the 

 attention of Voysey, Newbold, Franklin, and other observers, and even 

 after considerable progress had been made in classifying the rocks 

 of the central and Southern portions of the Peninsula, the formations 

 of Bengal remained almost completely unnoticed. This appears 

 especially surprising in the case of the district of coal-bearing 

 rocks, known as the Panchet (Pachete), or Burdwan, or Beerbhoom, or 

 Damuda, and now more generally as the Baniganj, field, since coal was 

 known to occur there so long ago as 1774, and was actually worked in 

 1777, while in 1830, when only a single most imperfect account of 

 its Geology existed, several collieries of considerable extent were 

 flourishing. Until 1845, when a regular Geological Survey was under- 

 taken, no general account of the formations existed, which had the least 



Memoirs of Geological Survey of India, Vol. III., Art I. 



