BAXA SERIES. 33 



area which, judging from our experience of the known coal-fields, the 

 Damuda rocks might fairly be expected to occupy. There are indeed some 

 reasons, founded on the connection observable in the position of the fields 

 between Raniganj and the river Koel, with the present lines of drainage, 

 for supposing that the Damudas were more largely deposited in the main 

 Gangetic valley than in the higher lateral ones."* Probably also the 

 geographical position and geological features of the known coal-fields, 

 would furnish a clue pointing to some portions of the southern part of 

 the plains as more promising than others. At the best, however, the 

 work would be mainly haphazard, and entirely so beyond a limited 

 distance from the edge of the plains. The first borehole might strike a 

 field equal to the Raniganj, and per contra 3 lakhs of rupis might be s^pent, 

 with no return whatever. It may be safely predicted that for many 

 decades no attempt will be made in this direction; but at some future epoch 

 in the History of India, when her manufacturing industries shall have 

 been fully developed, when the demand for coal shall have enormously 

 increased, and the fields of the Damuda valley begun to show signs of 

 exhaustion, it is quite conceivable that the winding engine and the cage 

 will be seen in the midst of the alluvial plains of Bengal, where an 

 unbroken expanse of rice-fields now stretches to the horizon. 



Chapter III. — Baxa Series. 



There is a series of rocks some thousand feet thick, comprising 



Lithology and strati- variegated slates, schists, quartzites, and dolomite, 



which is largely developed in the Western Duars, 



but has not been recognized in the Darjiling territory, except at the 



extreme eastern end. In the Duars these strata, like those of the other 



formations, dip mainly in to the mountain range or more or less truly 



* This question is, however, complicated by considerations as to whether the main valley 

 may not have been too deep for the formation of coal-producing beds of vegetable matter, 

 and by the want of knowledge as to how far the rocks have been subsequently denuded. 



e ( 33 t 



