J 80 SUB-HIMALAYAN ROCKS OF N. W. INDIA. [CHAP. VII. 



Graphite. — Graphite has been procured from several places in the 

 Lower Himalaya. Colonel Drummond, who has done so much to 

 develop the mineral resources of the province of Kumaon, obtained 

 some very fair samples of graphite in the neighbourhood of Almorah. 

 The circumstances of its occurrence there are interesting, and very 

 analogous to what I have described in the carbonaceous, slaty shales 

 of the Infra-Krol band. There seemed to be a band of graphitic 

 schists, regularly associated with the other metamorphic strata of the 

 district, and promising to be of great service in tracing out the 

 details of the stratigraphy. The best lumps of graphite have been 

 found where this schist has been crushed along a fault or line of 

 strain, and the graphitic matter has somehow become concentrated in 

 lumps of various size. 



Coal. — The question of the discovery of coal in these hills has so 

 often attracted local public attention, that it may be well to make a few 

 remarks on the subject. I would not by any means deter any explorer 

 from keeping his attention upon so important an object, but it is right 

 to make known the results of experience. There are two groups of 

 rocks in which supposed coal discoveries have been repeatedly made, in 

 the sandstone rocks of the lower hills, and in the black, shaly rocks 

 occurring beneath the limestones of the fringing zone of the higher hills. 

 I have seen a great deal of both these rocks, and I think that the 

 prospect of a useful deposit of coal being found in either is very unpro- 

 mising. The nests and strings of lignite that occur, sometimes close 

 tocether, in the sandstones, are manifestly the remains of isolated trunks 

 or roots of trees, which were rolled or floated into these positions and 

 became buried in the sand. There is, of course, the chance of a great 

 local accumulation of such matter ; but such has not been the 

 mode of origin of useful coal-seams. The carbonaceous shales of the 

 Infra-Krol band offer at first sight a more promising field of research 

 (vide p. 29). Without an extensive exploration of these shales, I should 



