840 Supposed Coal Field at Bidjeegurh. [Oct. 



a handful : the vein of coal was 3 feet thick, 1 foot and \ from the sur- 

 face, and running horizontally." 



7. Accordingly, my first attention was directed to this locality, to 

 which Mr. Hyland undertook to conduct me. On the 2nd Decem- 

 ber, therefore, in company with him I descended the Umlah Ghat. On 

 the 3rd Mr. Hyland pointed out two spots, where, he then stated to 

 me " he had been informed, that coal had been excavated, on some 

 former occasion, but that he himself had never obtained ocular de- 

 monstration of its presence." 



8. At the first of these two places, unpromising as it appeared, I com- 

 menced excavations, at a spot laid down from observed bearings. In the 

 accompanying sketch it is marked f, and lies at the foot of a perpendicu- 

 lar precipice, over which in the rains a torrent is precipitated, and which 

 in the course of time, has worn away the rock, so as fully to develop 

 the stratification. At the base of this fall, is seen a vein of what I con- 

 sider to be hard flinty shale, which I find to possess a specific gravity 

 of from 2.33 to 2.547, and of which a brief examination is given below. 



9. The width of this fall is about 100 feet, and its height about 80, 

 of which 60 feet, or perhaps more, from the top, are strata of sand- 

 stone ; then comes the vein of shale, running in nearly a horizontal di- 

 rection southeast by south, and varying in thickness from 12 to 14 feet : 

 the exposed surface appears to be a hard shale or flinty slate. I penetrat- 

 ed, for 8 or 10 feet below the mass, at right angles to its direction or 

 strike, and arrived at a hard sandstone. I then sunk a vertical shaft 

 but was stopped by a similar rock, about 3 feet below the surface. The 

 opening of a small cave presenting itself on the left extremity, I had it 

 enlarged, hoping by this means to penetrate to the rear of the vein, 

 the cave was not more than 18 inches in height, and appeared to run 

 nearly horizontally. I was in hopes that the north side of the cave 

 would have afforded encouraging indications, but was disappointed, 

 meeting only with the same indurated slate-stone. 



10. About 1000 or 1200 yards southeast of this spot, appears another 

 bed of shale, or rather perhaps another portion of the same bed, at the 

 base of the rock forming the bank of the adjoining nullah at G ; a 

 similar vein is also developed at h. 



11. The nullah at g runs through the formation, which appears 

 at intervals on the abrupt face of the banks of the nullah on either 

 side. About g the formation is exposed for about 14 feet in perpen- 

 dicular height ; it is composed of thin alternate undulating strata of a 

 flinty slate and a species of indurated clay of about half an inch to 2 

 inches in thickness ; it is harder as it approaches the bottom of the 



