1838.] Report on specimens of Coal. 849 



This jet, or pitch coal, were it found in sufficient quantities, would 

 not only answer well as a fuel, but would be superior to all other 

 coals for the particular object of getting- up steam, on account of the 

 large proportion of inflammable gas it disengages under combustion. 



Of this description are Nos. 1, 2 and 3 from the neighbourhood of 

 Kalabayh, and No. 10 from the northwest of Vera Ismael Khan. 

 Captain Burnes says that the former " was found in abundance" — 

 and that the latter " should it prove a good coal, will be invaluable, — 

 being in the neighbourhood of the Indus, and in a country where the 

 poverty of the people will make them rejoice to discover any means of 

 improving their condition." 



Of the excellence of the coal there can be no doubt ; there is I 

 fear less certainty of its abundance. It occurs in very thin seams, 

 which will not pay for the working if they lie in a hard rock, but if 

 seams even of a few feet thickness are met with, Captain Burnes's 

 anticipations will be amply fulfilled. The pitch coal of Mergui which 

 closely assimilates in chemical composition with the Indus jet, is stated 

 by Dr. Helfer to lie in a bed six feet thick, whereas the other is 

 barely an inch thick, and the veins, and natural cleavages, are every 

 where filled up with calcareous spar. 



No. 5, the bituminous shale of Cokat, was examined by me in 1833; 

 it is not at all adapted for burning in steamers, though, from the quan- 

 tity of gaseous matter expelled, it might be turned to account, in 

 default of better fuel, on shore. The same remark will apply with 

 more force to No. 7, a bituminous limestone, in which the slaty struc- 

 ture is not perceptible. 



The existence of large rocky formations, so strongly impregnated 

 with naphtha and bitumen, is indeed evidence of the proximity of coal 

 beds, from which, by the action of volcanic heat, we may suppose the 

 volatile matter to be forced into the porous superincumbent strata. In 

 Assam, where so many beds of rich lignite and pitch coal, not differing 

 in composition from the jet of Kcdabagh, have been lately found, springs 

 of naphtha are common, and were known long previous to the dis- 

 covery of the coal. 



To a similar origin may be traced the bituminous exudations from 

 rocks in the Punjab and Cabul, of which we have examples in 

 No. 6 and No. 8. The former of these may be called a bituminous 

 brine, for it contains a large proportion of common salt, attributable 

 doubtless to the rock-salt deposits of the same range of hills. 



Another bituminous exudation from near Ghazni, given to me by 

 5o2 



