12 GRIESBACH : UAMKOLA. AND TATAPANI COAL-FIELDS. 



sula is complete^ even as to the colour. Again we meet with a mass of 

 rocksj but this time of calcareous character, inclosed in a great fold of 

 metamorphics between Munshari and Bageswar on the southern slope of 

 the Himalayas. Here are shales/ more massive beds, and conglomerate 

 beds, the debris in which is all, however, made up of limestone. Suppos- 

 ing the identity of these formations with the lower Vindhyan jasper con- 

 glomerate and with the beds near Kandia, it would assign a pre-Silurian 

 age to the latter, probably Cambrian. 



South of Jajawal, in the Ramkola pargana, I met with a narrow 



strip of hard dark blue slates, resting on mica schists, 

 Slates of Jajawal. , ^ . i • i -i i , r- r'n\ ji 



and dipping at a high angle (about 55 ) to the 



north-east. They are overlaid there by gritty Barakar sandstone. Most 

 probably, these slates belong to the same group of semi-metamorphic beds, 

 of which the Kandia beds are the type in the Ramkola field. Pos- 

 sibly the semi-metamorphic rocks described by Mr. BalP from the Bis- 

 rampur field also may be included in this group, but I have not seen his 

 section. It is not at all unlikely that formerly this group has extended 

 over a much larger area south of Sivguja, and from there th6 red 

 quartzite boulders of Vindhyan type may have been derived, so common 

 in the Talchirs of my area." 



The Gondwana Series. 

 The coal-fields under description occupy a principal eastern arm 

 of the main central area of Gondwana rocks, stretching from Tatapani 

 due westward for more than 200 miles to near Jabalpur, and from 

 the latter position extending for 300 miles by a long prolongation to 

 the south-east to near Sambalpur, into close proximity of the Talchir 

 field in Orissa. 



There is no doubt that the Gondwanas spread originally over a much 



Extending over larger wider extent of country than they do at present, 



area formerly. ^^^ numerous detached remains of Talchirs and 



uncertain sandstones plastering over some of the metamorphic rocks 



' Records, 1873, pt. 2. Vide Plate. II, fig. 2. 



( 140 ) 



