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



of the torrent. Very many boats of the finest description in Bengal are 

 lost by falling foul of each other; and once upset, these boats are 

 usually dashed to pieces on the rocky sides of the river, or else sink 

 with their load to an irrecoverable depth in the quicksands. 



In order to be able to load these boats with rapidity, it is next 

 of consequence to have the coals ready at the ghaut ; this imposes the 

 necessity of keeping the colliery at work throughout the year; the 

 coals therefore are seldom sufficiently fresh when they are sent to 

 Calcutta, for it is only those worked during the ten weeks' time that 

 can be strictly so called. The consequence is, that the coal being 

 subject to exposure for so many months to the heat of a tropical 

 sun, has its innate tar and coal-oil greatly evaporated. This is the 

 cause of its apparent inferiority to that imported from England, which 

 is usually put on board ship within a day or two of its exit from the 

 coal pit, and arrives at Calcutta without ever having been subjected 

 to exposure. The coal of the district when fresh, will bear a favour- 

 able comparison with the average of coals imported from England, 

 and that from Barracar is a very little superior to it ever imported. 

 The great drawback to a cheaper supply of coals to the Calcutta 

 market is attributable mainly to the two great causes of loss in 

 weight by this exposure to the weather, for it is not only the nine and 

 half months at the river ghaut, but there must afterwards be a 

 twelve months stock at Calcutta to supply the market with, until 

 the river again becomes navigable. These two periods will be found to 

 be an average of twenty months to be subject to exposure ; and the next 

 is, that there is an interest of money on the outlay for the same period of 

 time. I doubt much if any remedy at the present rate of demand 

 for coals can be applied. Neither rail-roads nor canals with the present 

 annual demand for a quantity of about 40,000 tons, (although the pre- 

 sent collieries could treble their produce directly,) could compete with 

 the comparatively cheap transport by the ungovernable river naviga- 

 tion, which bad as it is, still permits the coals to be conveyed to Calcutta 

 at an average charge of seven shillings per ton. Although the general 

 price for first class Steam coals is now rated at six annas per maund, 

 or about twenty shillings per ton, whilst there arises a great deal of 

 breakage into small and dust, which abstracts from its quality their 

 price about one-fifth, so that the first class Steam coal may net to the 



