ECONOMIC GEOLOGY. 357 



Mr. Coggin Brown, who made a search for the mineral with the assist- 

 ance of a native guide, was unable to discover it in situ. Specimens 

 of this mineral have also been sent to the Geological Survey 

 laboratory on several occasions by the District officials for report, 

 but in all cases the description of the locality from which they 

 came was too vague to enable it to be traced. 



Coai. 



The so-called coal of the Northern Shan States has already 

 been sufficiently described, 1 and requires only 

 and quality. ° ccurrence ' a brief notice here. I have already given an 

 account, in Chap. XIII, of the various basins 

 in which the seams are found. It is a brown lignitic coal con- 

 taining a high percentage of moisture, as is shown by the analyses 

 given in Table 13, compiled from the various reports, and in its natural 

 state has been found to possess little or no economic value. It is 

 found in the small basins filled with late Tertiary silts occupying the 

 valleys of the streams that rise among the hills surrounding Loi Ling, 

 the loftiest mountain in the States, and sometimes occurs in beds of 

 considerable size, one seam in the Lashio field attaining a thickness of 

 30 feet. But such a seam as this if followed up would probably be 

 found to thin out rapidly, and none of them appears to be con- 

 tinuous over a wide area. The coaly layers were probably accu- 

 mulated in swamps similar to those which now surround the lakes 

 that still remain unsilted in the Southern Shan States. For this 

 reason it has not been possible to form any reliable estimate of the 

 quantity of coal available in these basins. 



l F. Nootling, Coal-Fields in the N. Shan States ; Record.?, Geol. Surv. hid., Vol. 

 XXIV, Pt. 2, p. 99: T. D. La Touehe and R. R. Simpson, The Lashio Coal-Meld, 

 Ibid, Vol. XXXIII, Pt. 2, p. 117 : R. R. Simpson, The Namma, Man-sang, and Man- 

 se-le Coal-Fields, Ibid, p. 125. 



