194 



Notices of Book. 



[Ju Li- 



ed on the subject, and considerable sums have been expended in exca- 

 vations without arriving at any material results.* 



" Cutch has been recently described by Captain Grant as presenting 

 three parallel ranges of mountains extending east and west. The 

 southern range is composed of igneous rocks, probably greenstone ; the 

 centre range appears to consist of similar granitic rocks to those on 

 which the sandstones in other parts of India generally rest, and the 

 northern range at the foot of which coal has been found, consists of 

 sandstone. 



" This series of formations is apparently identical with the structure 

 of the entire range that crosses India, with slight interruption, from 

 Cutch to Assam, and on the opposite flanks of which, our coal-fields 

 are situated in pairs ; as for instance the Assam and Silhet coal-fields, 

 the Palamow and Burdwan coal-fields, bearing precisely the same re- 

 lative position to each other and to the mountain chain to which they 

 belong, that the great coal-field of Northumberland and Durham on the 

 eastern side of the Penine or English Alps, bears to that of White- 

 haven at the western base of the same mountain group, or, as the 

 great coal-field of Yorkshire and Nottingham bears to that of Man- 

 chester with regard to the same chain. 



" Instances of a similar arrangement in the natural distribution of 

 coal are not confined to the cases here adduced, but appear so universal 

 whenever the subject has been examined,! as almost to enable us to ' 

 apply inductions resulting therefrom to practical purposes in the case i 

 before us. 



* " The leports of these Officers with the exception of the last are piiblished in the First 

 Appendix to the Third Report of the Select Committee of the House of Commons on Indian 

 affairs 1831. They relate chiefly'to remarks on working, the quality of the coal procured, 

 &c. Captain Grant's report in addition to similar observations, contains a list of 54 beds of 

 sandstones, shales, and clays, penetrated in boring to a depth of 190 leai.—vide 

 Prinsepi's Journal, III, p. ^d.^^ 



t " In like manner t^ southern transition chain of Scotland separates the coal-fields of 

 Dumfriesshire from those of the great central districts, which last are traced by Mr. 

 Couybeare into Ireland on the one side, and a continuation of the same line extends 

 through the north of Europe on the other. Pursuing the same views, and guided by the 

 direction and aiSnities-of strata, Mr. C. also traces the connexion of the coal districts of 

 the south Western counties of England across the Channel into Brittany,- where we find 

 as might be expected, he says, the small coal-field at Litry, and farther south on the con- 

 tinuation of the chains that cross from Devon to the Continent are more extensive depo- 

 sites of coal betv.'een Angers and Nantes. The carboniferous tract of Northern France 

 and the Netherlands, may generally be described as extending westward from Avithin a 

 few miles of the Channel near Boulogne by Valenciennes, and thence along the Scheldt 

 and Meuse, many of the coal districts of Northern Germany may, with great probability, 

 be considered as a prolongation of it." 



i 



