4 mallet: geology of daejiling and western duars. 



worked for a long time past in the same region, but little has been 

 known as to their value ; and while lime has been in great demand of late 

 for the railway works, the supply has been scanty and the cost extremely 

 high. It having therefore been decided that an examination into the 

 mineral resources of the Darjiling district and the Western Duars 

 should be made, I was deputed to the duty at the commencement of last 

 cold weather. 



My attention was of course mainly directed to such points as bear 

 more directly on economic questions, and my observations on some other 

 portions of the geology were necessarily rather scanty. The area which 

 I examined most closely is a band a few miles wide along the foot of 

 the hills, between the Mechi and Jaldoka rivers ; that in which the coal- 

 bearing rocks occur. I left the hills to the north of this for the close of 

 the season, and had only time to traverse them rapidly on my way to 

 the different mines. Except at Baxa, the foot of the hills forms the 

 British frontier all along the Western Duars, and my observations here 

 refer to a mere fringe of the hills immediately north of this line — all 

 that has been topographically mapped, and that my instructions, as well 

 as the time at my disposal, allowed me to survey. 



The Darjiling hill territory (including in this term the Daling 

 d ' f d' "i sub-division) is not marked either orographically 

 ing hill territory. or geologically as a region distinct in itself. It 



comprises an area which, as a portion of the great Himalayan range, is 

 quite insignificant, and the limits of which have been determined by 

 political considerations. While the Terai stretches along the base of 

 the hills, our territory is divided from Nepal on the west by the con- 

 tinuation of the Singalela ridge and the Mechi river. Previous to the 

 Bhutan war the Tista formed the eastern limit, but the annexation of 

 the Daling sub-division from that state has extended the frontier to the 

 river Jaldoka. The Tista, with its tributaries the Rang Chu and Great 

 Bangit, and the Ramman, an affluent of the latter, form the northern 

 limit of Darjiling and divide it from independent Sikkim. 



( 4 ) 



