342 Coal found at Kotah. [No. 112. 



gods contended ; while other maintained the opinions, that they annu- 

 ally grew and were thrown off the river's bed, or sprung like the Cythe- 

 rean goddess from the water foam ; but all agreed that it was< the 

 Pundeetah river that supplied them. I lost no time in proceeding to 

 the Sungum of the rivers Godavery and Pundeetah, and upon receiv. 

 ing, what I conceived from specimens shewn me, correct intelligence 

 of their origin, I ascended the river to a place called Kotah, a small 

 Goand village on its banks, about ten miles from the Sungum, and 

 twenty miles N. E. of Chinnore; a space of about eighty yards in 

 length, and thirty in breadth was pointed out at the edge of the left 

 bank of the river, the alluvial covering of which could not be much 

 under forty. five feet, and this I was told was the original seat of the 

 coal. Upon examination, I found that limestone, more or less argil- 

 laceous, occupied this space ; the upper strata were completely dislocated, 

 and deranged by the force of the current ; the inferior, however, appear- 

 ed more compact and hard, and as far as could be ascertained, dipped 

 to the N. E. at a low angle. Seeing that the water must have com- 

 pletely denuded these limestones of any shale or coal that may ever 

 have accompanied them, I thought of searching a little higher up in 

 the bed of the river, and observing a small rock of the same argilla- 

 ceous limestone just above the water, search was made there, when 

 coal along with its accompanying shale and bituminous shale was bro- 

 ken off from the sides of the rock : this left no doubt as to the existence 

 and position of a coal measure. The rock formation in which it is to 

 be supposed this coal measure exists, is that where the mineral is usu- 

 ally found all over the world, and in India without any exception. Ac- 

 cording to the report of the Calcutta Coal Committee, the depth of the 

 alluvium, and the circumstance of the outcrop being in the river's bed, 

 precluded all possibility of ascertaining the relative position of the 

 several strata ; but as sandstone is found on all sides, and towards the 

 north at the short distance of two or three hundred yards, it is more 

 than probable that here there is no deviation from the arrangement of 

 rock commonly found to exist in such cases. As to the sandstone 

 itself, I cannot give a better description than in the words of the late 

 Dr. Voysey, who travelled over a great part of this country, and must 

 have been perfectly familiar with the sandstone formation of the Go- 

 davery : — 



