Reports on ike Coal and Mineral Resources of India, 1.53 



IV.— Notices of Books. 



l.—Reports of a Committee fs)r investigating the Coal and Mineral re* 

 sources of India. — Calcutta — 1838— pp. 



At a time when the European mind in India is directed with intense 

 eagerness to the subject of Steam communication, it will be interesting 

 to the general reader, and, at the same time, instructive to the geolo- 

 gist, to learn whence is to be derived fuel for the fires that are to give 

 us glorious light in this land of the sun, not by imparting their dusky 

 rays to the visual orb, but by setting in motion those mighty machines, 

 which by their velocity more than half " annihilate time and space," 

 bringing us in near contact v/ith the centre of human civilization in 

 distant Europe, and thereby illumining the mind by establishing a me- 

 dmra for t he facile interchange of thoughts on matters connected with 

 the arts and sciences and manufactures, and all the branches of human 

 knowledge; not to speak of the soft affections and gentle sympathies 

 of our nature, which will be cemented and strengthened by the more 

 free inter-communion with those we love in another division of our 

 globe. 



A committee for investigating the Coal and Mineral resources of 

 India has lately closed its labours, and sent in a Report to the Bengal 

 Government, a copy of which we have been favoured with. This report 

 is an extremely able and interesting paper, and without further preface 

 we shall proceed to make such use of it as will enable us to afford a 

 view of the subjects of which it treats. The following letter will give 

 a succinct view of the whole matter by way of introduction. 



To 



The Right Honorable 



GEORGE, LORD AUCKLAND, 



Governor of Bengal 



May it please your Lordship, 



We have at length the honor to place before your Lordship a series 

 of reports on the chief subject of investigation contemplated in our 

 nomination a& a Committee,"~namely, the existence, extent and relative 

 accessibility of the beds of mineral Coal in different parts of India and 

 their immediate applicability to the increasing demands of the steam 

 navigation of the Ganges and its tributaries. 



