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



ed the strata, as is frequently the case from such causes, and reduced 

 its thickness to about three feet. There is no information to be derived 

 from the difference of the strata of rocks which accompany it, and usu- 

 ally serve to guide us and assist our judgment in such difficulties. We 

 are now arrived opposite to the great Pachete Hill, and find ourselves 

 in the country of dislocations and troublous faults and dykes. Here on 

 the south-east bank of the Damoodah, as I before have stated, disloca- 

 tions occur in every direction beneath that great hill, and between it 

 and the river. Coal, which in my present state of survey I take to con- 

 sist of two veins, is discovered all the way up to Gautcole, the open vein 

 of it is seen in numerous places, and it is all of good quality. At Gaut- 

 cole, the river navigation ceases for boats ; it is impeded by rapids, and 

 of such fierceness, as to preclude a hope of effecting any passage for 

 boats higher up this river. It is convenient, therefore, to confine my 

 description of the minerals to those which are discovered below this 

 place, although the same continuous field of coal, though much more 

 contracted in breadth, extending but a short distance to either side of 

 the Damoodah, continues all the way to Ramghur, and to the hills 

 separating it from Palamow, and it seems probable, that the coal fields 

 in that district are coeval with the one of the Damoodah valley; 

 but it is remarkable that the quality of the coal, as it approaches to 

 the hills of evident igneous origin in that country, has been subjected 

 to a change for the worse, and upon which I formerly reported in my 

 survey of that country for coal by order of Government. The Da- 

 moodah, as I have before stated, has a range of conical hills running 

 parallel with it at a distance generally of four or five miles from its 

 south-western bank all the way to Beharrynauth hill, thence they 

 keep at a greater distance, and stretch by the picturesque village of 

 Baroo, which is the residence of numerous priests with temples rais- 

 ed, some on and some cut from the sides of these conical hills, which 

 stretch away hence to near Rogonatpore. On the south-west of these 

 hills, which I take it are protrusions through the sand-stone formation, 

 and further towards Chota Nagpore, the coal formation is again met 

 with, and it has been a matter of some doubt to me, whether it is not 

 connected with that of the Coyle river and the Palamow coal field ; and 

 that the great disjunction of the three coal fields of Damoodah, Coyle, 

 and Palamow is clearly defined by the range of hills before described, 



