242 



Carhonife7'ous Stratum at Baypoor 



[April 



heat, -was converted, with considerable diminution of bulk, into a black 

 magnetic slag.* 



1 observed traces of a similar carbonaceous bed in the banks of the 

 Tirtalla river in south Malabar, between Paulghaut and Calicut; and 

 Colonel Cullen informed me, that he had discovered, so far back as 

 1832, a carboniferous seam, four or five feet thick in its broadest part, 

 in a perpendicular cliff of laterite at Vorkully, a little south of 

 Quilon. The cliff he described to me as about eighty feet high, facing 

 the sea, and resting immediately on garnetiferous gneiss. The black 

 aluminous shale and clay imbedding the carbonized wood was satura- 

 ted with the moisture which percolated through the spongy substance 

 of the superincumbent laterite. The specimens given me by Colonel 

 Cullen, and for which I feel much indebted, assimilated in every respect 

 those of Baypoor; except that the proportion of sulphureous matter 

 was less in the former. Colonel Cullen also informed me that he ob- 

 served some carbonaceous looking strata near Cannanore. It would 

 seem therefore that their extent on the Malabar coast is considerable, 

 and it is possible that they may be a continuation of one great deposit, 

 or basin, the southern edge of which may be the stratum observed near 

 Quilon, which Colonel Cullen btates to be inclined at a considerable 

 angle with the horizon. A few well conducted boring] experiments 

 made in favourable situations within this area, which is almost entirely 

 occupied by the laterite, would serve to elucidate this point, and per- 

 haps bring to light a more perfectly formed seam of coal. If so, its 

 proximity to the coast and Bombay, and facilities of water carriage, 

 would give it great advantages over the produce of the coal fields in 

 the interior of Bengal. f 



Colonel Cullen has accordingly favoured us with the following obser- 

 vations on his discoveries on the Western Coast, referred to in Mr, 

 Newbold's paper. — Editor. 



" I have no notes taken at the time, and I can only therefore now state 

 generally from memory the appearances of these deposits. 



" The deposit at Cannanore was examined very superficially. It con- 

 sists exclusively of an aluminous clay or shale of a dark carbonaceous 



* The carbonized wood with a shining fracture like jet, burnt into a light cinder with 

 •OBsiderable flame. 



+ I have forwarded specimens of the Baypoor stratum for the museum of the Society, 

 by sea from Cannanore, 



