1840.] 



Beport of the Coal Committee. 



.167 



he was obliged to leave the raising and dispatch of the coal to inexpe- 

 rienced natives. 



The following is an extract from Mr. Pontet's letter, in which he des- 

 cribes the operations in which he was engaged — " After the first vein 

 of coal, we came upon a hard black stone, and finding the operation of 

 boring through it so very tedious, I took upon myself to select a spot 

 for a shaft, and procured well-diggers, and stone-cutters, who have been 

 for the last two months at work, at present to all appearance with satis- 

 factory prospects, as one of the stone-cutters who opened a shaft at 

 Burdwan says this mine bears some resemblance to it. I am induced 

 to persevere a few feet more, in hopes of coming to a useful vein. The 

 first twenty -three feet of soil is red and black earth mixed with kunkur, 

 and under that, to a depth of forty feet, are thirteen different strata, three 

 of coal, and the rest various kinds of stone." Mr. Pontet transmitted 

 to the Committee specimens of all the different beds passed through, 

 which are remarkably characteristic of the true coal measures ; and of 

 eleven different beds passed through in the last seventeen feet of the 

 excavation, three were coal of good quality, but too thin for working, 

 and in the shale we observed excellent specimens of Fertahrea Indica^ 

 one of the few abundant fossils of the Burdwan beds that happens to 

 have received a name. 



The excavation was formed on the N. W. side of the Bramenee nulla j 

 but Mr. Pontet states that he traced the coal a mile S. W. of the Bra- 

 menee river, from which he concludes that the Burdwan and Rajmahal 

 beds are connected 



Soan River, 



Tn a letter from Mr. Ravenshaw, Officiating Commissioner of Patna, 

 to the Government of Bengal, dated 6th January last, that gentleman 

 states that a Cazee had found a bed of coal at a place called Chupree, 

 four miles from the Soan, near its junction with the Koila, and estima- 

 ted the expense of delivering coal from this bed to Dinapore to be five 

 and a half annas per maund. On this information 300 rupees were ad- 

 vanced to the Cazee to enable him to commence operations; but after 

 extracting lOO maunds, precisely similar to Palamow coal, the bed as- 

 sumed a slaty character, and the Cazee abandoned his operations. If 

 the Cazee* s statement regarding the existence of coal so near the Soan 

 be correct, the circumstances under which it occurs ought to be fully 

 investigated. 



