PREVIOUS OBSERVERS AND HISTORY OF THE FIELD. n 



sidered in the same paper in which also the Shahpur field is described 

 and a map given. 



In 1878 1 in his annual Administration Report for 1877 Mr. Medli- 

 l8 « cott gives the progress which had been made 



Progress of borings. wit j 1 the borings since his last paper. The 

 Khapa boring had been carried down to a depth of 720 feet without 

 change of formation. The three borings at Tundni (10 miles west of 

 Mohpani) were carried down only to 328 feet, 172 feet, and 243 feet, 

 and stopped on account of the difficulties encountered. At Lokartalai 

 a boring was carried down to a depth of 254 feet, to the deep of the 

 carbonaceous outcrops there. This boring proved that the coaly 

 bands did not improve, and a subsequent discovery of fossils by Mr. 

 Hughes showed these beds not to belong to the Lower Gondwanas. 

 Two other borings put down 60 yards apart at the lowest point of the 

 section, to try the underlying strata, were stopped at 84 feet and 88 feet 

 by induration in the sandstone. As regards the two borings on the 

 Pachmarhi roads, the one on the road from Pipria station within 50 yards 

 of a Talchir outcrop was sunk to a depth of 285 feet in Upper Gond- 

 wana rocks, thus proving the impracticability of endeavouring to work 

 coal here even if the junction is not faulted ; the other one on the Anjan 

 river was at the time of writing down to 186 feet in mottled sandy clay 

 of the Bagra group, this boring was also close to a patch of Talchirs. 

 In 1878 2 Dr. Feistmantel made a traverse across the Satpura basin, 

 l8 8 with the object of obtaining fossils from that 



Dr. Feistmantel. region. He points out from palaeontological 



evidence that the Mohpani coal seams belong to the same horizon as 

 the coal beds of Karharbari. He also found fossils near Barikondam 

 in the Bijori horizon of Mr. Medlicott, which correspond with those of 

 the Raniganj group of Bengal. He was also able by means of the 

 plant remains to identify the same beds to the west, about 5 miles 

 from Rorighat. Some of the coal beds (Kotmi, Temni, and Dolari) 



1 Rec. Geol. Surv. India, XI 1, 1. 



3 Pal. Ind. Ser. XII. 1, and Rec. Geol. Surv. India, XII. r, 74. 



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