724 A Description of the Coal Field [No. 128. 



schistose formation of hills commences, and which run across to 

 Monghyr and the Gurruckpore districts. Bending round with these 

 hills, it crosses over to the Adji river, and thence skirting the fdot of 

 the igneous hills, which continue towards Rajmahal, the mineral 

 decreases as the distance increases, or as it recedes beyond the Adji ri- 

 ver, a small portion, however, alone of this country, east of the Adji, 

 can be called a continuous coal field, and where it descends to a village 

 called Kosta, on the east bank of the Adji, it ceases ; and the mineral 

 and its concomitant sand-stone are lost. Eruptions of granite, gness 

 and basalt distinctly mark its limit, until it reaches the very extraordi- 

 nary mass of gness rocks at the town of Debrazpore, beyond which 

 easterly, there are occasional traces of sand-stones and bituminous 

 shales ; and in more than one or two localities immediately beneath 

 the hills, and within the dense forests, traces of very inferior coal 

 are found ; and at one locality on the Bermany Nullah, which lies east 

 of Soory or Beerbhoom, about 24 miles, coal is found in quantity, but 

 of a quality so nearly approaching to bituminous shale, as to be unfit 

 for steam purposes. Other localities there are, but the quality of coal 

 remains to be tested ; but they are all of them of the same worthless 

 nature as that at Bermany Nullah. I mention this, just to draw 

 attention to a parcel of trashy nonsense, put forth in some publication ; 

 something which would induce people to believe, that the Sylhet and 

 Burdwan coal field, (as it is there called) have some, or had some 

 connexion, which by a marvellous occurrence has been disjoined^ 

 and that Sylhet and Chirra Poonjee are now journeying towards the 

 moon. There is no more similarity between the coal and its concomi- 

 tant rocks in the Damoodah and that of the Sylhet and Garrows, 

 than between chalk and cheese. None but the most profoundly igno- 

 rant of the matter, would entertain a doubt of it. The whole is a mere 

 literary phantasmagoria, got up ad captandum, and put forth in a 

 manner calculated to mislead the unwary. I may be told, that our 

 operations are as yet in their infancy ; but I cannot see a trace which 

 long and great experience in such matters would warrant me, or even 

 any unpractised miner, although not educated in the school of mo- 

 dern mineralogists, of snail-hunters and saxo -florists, to arrive at any 

 other conclusion, but that the two great deposits are wholly different. 

 The Damoodah and Adji country is, throughout that portion where 



