268 Notes upon the Geology of the Rajmahal Hills. [No. 3. 



clearly pointing to the source from whence the materials forming 

 these conglomerate and pebbly beds, had been derived. 



Rejecting, for the present, the consideration of the occurrence of 

 coal at the Motijhurna Falls, near to Sikreegully, at the N. W, 

 corner of the Rajmahal hills ; (and which it will be seen belongs to 

 a slightly different period) ; all the localities in which coal has been 

 found in this district, occur at intervals along the western escarp- 

 ment of the hills, or at least near to this. The rocks associated 

 with the coal rest invariably on the old gneissose, and primary 

 schist rocks, for the most part dipping at low angles, or nearly 

 horizontal, and are in all cases covered up, (and not underlaid) by 

 the great overflowing sheets of trappean rocks, which form the 

 larger portion of the hill district.* 



Of this coal-yielding series of rocks the lowest beds in the district 

 are those which occur in the vicinity of the southern boundary of 

 the Damin-i-koh district, near to the villages of Mussinia and 

 Dhomunpore. The series here consists of alternating beds of shales, 

 sandstones, conglomerates, &c. and a few thin layers of iron- 

 stone. The sandstones are generally of a greyish white colour 

 derived from the admixture of carbonaceous particles, with the 

 grains of quartz and felspar which compose the mass. Occasionally 

 the beds are stained of a deep red from percolation of peroxide of 

 iron ; and some of the shales also are of this tint and character. 

 The iron stone is of good quality, but of no thickness, and occurs 

 principally in nodular masses, in the dark shales. In some of the 

 beds of shale, thin partings of coal occur, and these beds are occa- 

 sionally so intermixed with bituminous matter, that they would burn 

 freely, although not blazing. 



In the Mussinia beds, there is no seam of coal worth working. f 



* A reference to Dr. McClelland's sections of the lower or southern part of the 

 Rajmahal hills, will show how completely we differ from him, in respect to these 

 rocks, he representing the trap as in all cases beneath the sandstones with coal. 

 A few, very few instances of dykes of trap, cutting through these rocks occur ; 

 no instance as far as I know, of a sheet or mass of trap underlying them. 



f Just beyond the boundary of the Government territory, near to Mussinia, 

 very tolerable coal is seen in the bed of a small nullah near the village of Hurrin- 

 singah the true coal seams are not very thick, but they are separated only by 

 highly bituminous shales, much of which could be profitably used, and which could 

 be economically raised. 



