I 2 JONES : SOUTHERN COAL-FIELDS OF SATPURA GONDWANA BASIN. 



in the Shahpur field he assigned to the Karharbari beds, the rest 



were doubtful on account of the absence of fossil evidence, but there 



was some possibility of their being of Barakar age. 



In 1S79 1 in a note on Mohpani coal-field Mr. Medlicott gave a 



jg-g sketch of the progress made at Mohpani and also 



Progress of borings. of the concluding; operations in search of coal. 



The Anjan borings is reported to have been carried down to a depth 



of 350 feet without piercing the red rocks of the Mahadeva series. 



A boring was put down at Benar, at the bottom of an old shaft, 



118 feet deep and carried to a total depth of 426 feet; the last 



247 feet being in sandstone resembling that of the Barakars, and 



containing carbonaceous shale and even fragments of coal, without 



any coal seam being struck, though in adjoining parts of this field the 



coal lies within 150 feet of the top of the coal-measure rocks. 



In the Manual of the Geology of India, such information as was 



Manual of the Geology available on the subject is given up to date; but 



of India - in this part of the Manual questions of economic 



geology were not taken up. 



In his annual Administration Report for 1882 2 Mr. Medlicott placed 



on record the latest operations in this basin, viz., 

 1882. 

 Progress of explora- the three borings which were put down in the 



Shahpur field. He writes : — 

 "Two of them were made to a depth of 400 feet and the third to 539 feet. They all 

 passed through several coaly seams, with some thin bands of coal; but none were 

 of sufficient promise to recommend the sinking of a trial shaft. I believe that all the 

 coal-bearing measures were passed through in each boring, but the seams are 

 even poorer than at their outcrops. The coal prospects in the Satpura basin are 

 thus reduced (besides the Mohpani mines) to the Pench valley field, of which Mr. 

 Blanford gave a very encouraging report in 1866 (Records Vol. XV, part 2, 1882). 

 This field has naturally been left to the last on account of its comparative inaccessibi- 

 lity; but the engineering difficulties to be overcome are nothing like so great as 

 those on the new Indore and Bhopal State Railways, and a line from Itarsi up the 

 Tawa valley to the Pench would be in every respect the most favourable for cross- 

 ing the Satpura range between the Narbada valley and Nagpur. Such a line 

 would pass along the Shahpur coal-field, and might lead to a further exploration 

 of those measures." 



(12) 1 Rec. Geol. Surv. India, XII. 2,95. 2 Ibid, XVI. i, 1. 



