1842.] Mineral Resources of India. 835 



forges. To him therefore Government applied directly for informa- 

 tion. His answer is dated 14th March 1814. He states, that he has 

 never been to the spot, but is told that it is Jarrea Cottra, about 

 thirty coss from Bancoora ; that the coal is from the surface, therefore 

 too slaty and bituminous to answer every purpose of the forge ; that 

 even now he met occasionally with very good coal, and was sure that 

 if they dug deeper, much better could be obtained. That he procured 

 it for little more than the cooly hire, or eleven annas the cist, and had 

 imported several thousand maunds, which he used in combination with 

 charcoal. Mr. Smith also stated, that he obtained nails from the 

 same place, manufactured from the iron ores of the neighbourhood with 

 the aid of the coals ; concluding with recommending Mr. W. Jones to 

 the notice of Government as a person conversant with mines and 

 collieries, and one " who from his great knowledge of mechanics, could 

 soon ascertain if better coal could be found lower in the earth." 



Mr. Jones, who had never been in the district before, was accord- 

 ingly deputed by Government to examine it on an allowance of 600 

 Rs. a month. Meeting my father occasionally in town, he soon learnt 

 all Mr. Suetonius Heatly's exertions in the working of coal, and was 

 directed to the various sources of information. On his return, he men- 

 tioned that the remains of Mr. Heatly's works were distinctly visible, 

 that the natives knew their origin, and stated them to have been con- 

 ducted by Europeans, who fell a sacrifice to a pestilential fever. It is 

 not therefore very creditable to Mr. Jones, that both in his papers in 

 the Transactions of the Asiatic Society, as well as in the official corres- 

 pondence which he held with various Government officers, not a single 

 word alluding to any labours prior to his own is to be found. 



From the time of Mr. Jones, the question of the value of Bheerbhoom 

 coal has been settled, thanks to the energy of the distinguished noble- 

 man, who then directed the councils of India. The labours of later 

 discoverers will be found in the reports of the Coal Committee in suffi- 

 cient detail. I have already sufficiently trespassed in length, having 

 been, to speak in the quaint language of Williams' Natural History of 

 the Mineral Kingdom, " really concerned for the honour of the coal, 

 " and as I reckoned the subject my own, I wished therefore to be its 



faithful historian." 



5 R 



