1838.] Reports on the Coal and Mineral Resources of India, iC7 



ment inarching across the district. This discovery was communicated 

 to the late Major General Hardwicke, and although the country was 

 at the time depending for supplies of coal on England and New 

 Holland, no farther attention appears to have been directed to the 

 subject until 1809, when the Military Board, having been called upon 

 for information, appears to have reported unfavourably of the quality 

 of the coal in question. 



" In i8l3,when the inconvenience of depending on distant sources for 

 an article of such increasing consumption began to be felt, Mr. Cule- 

 brooke directed the attention of Government to a discovery of coal 

 that had been made near Silhet by Mr. Stark, but which coal was 

 shortly afterwards also condemned by the officers who were directed 

 by the Military Board to report as to its quality. Mr. Jones was then 

 dispatched by Government to examine the Burdwan coal on the spot, 

 and to report the best way of rendering it available to the public works 

 in Calcutta, but the difficulties attending the navigation of the Damuda 

 river near the source of which the coal-field is situated, induced him 

 to look with more confidence of success to the Silhet coal district^ 

 which be was accordingly permitted to visit. 



" Mr* Jones reported from this quarter that coal-tar, beads, and amu- 

 lets, had been manufactured for centuries about the neighbourhood of 

 Laour, from coal found in the Kasya mountains, but the impracticable 

 nature of the country, and the rude condition of the Kasya tribes, pre- 

 vented his making sny considerable progress in discovery ; and it was 

 not until after these mountains became subject to the protection of the 

 British Government, that an extensive bed of coal, forming a large por- 

 tion of a precipice scarcely more than a mile from Cherra Ponji was 

 brought to public notice.* 



This coal may at any time be delivered into boats at the foot of the 

 mountains at four annas per maund, this being the regular rate of 

 porter hire, and from the way in which the coal occurs at Cherra, no 

 expense is incurred in extracting it.f 



" If the demand for this coal were sufficient, the expence of convey- 

 ance might be much lessened by carting it from the pit to the brow of 

 the mountain, and for the remainder of the distance by employing 



* Journal of Asiatic Society, 1832, 252." 

 " t From May to Septomber small boats can approach the base of the mountains by the 

 Pandua river, at other seasons the Ghats are sometimes Iwo, and at others four miles 

 distant, but no difference of charge is made by the porters on this account— see JoiiriKil 

 Asiatic Society, vol. Ill, p. 25." 



" The quality of this coal is considered by Mr. J. Trinsep as 10 per cent, better than that 

 ofBurUwan," 



