o70 



Beport of the Coal Committee. 



[April 



j4ssam. 



A report having been furnished on the subject of the Assam coal 

 beds since the last general reports of the Committee were written,* 

 there is little to say on the subject. Lieut. Brodie, principal assistant 

 to the Commissioner, found coal of good quality about a year ago in a 

 Tery favourable position on the Disung river, a specimen of which^^ was 

 forwarded to the Committee in July last, and found to afford — 



Specific gravity, 1.3 



Inflammable matter, 40 



Carbon, ... 55 



Earthy matter, 5 



100 



We believe the Assam Tea Company are already about to open a 

 colliery in this situation, with the intention of keeping a depot supplied 

 from it at Dikoo Mookh, on the main river. 



Mr. Brodie had before found two and a half feet bed of coal about 

 three and a quarter of a mile above the falls of the Jumna. A boat on 

 average would reach the falls from Gowahattee in twenty days, and return 

 in ten. Some years ago coal was raised by Mr. Bruce, under orders of 

 the late Mr. Scott, from beds near the banks of the Suffry, a tributary of 

 the Disung 5 on trial this proved to be the best coal ever found in Indiat 

 but the situation was inconvenient, the Suffry being unnavigable at all 

 seasons, and a small ridge of hills would render the formation of a 

 hackery road difiicult. In February 1838, Captain Jenkins found two 

 beds of coal, one of them 100 yards in length, and eight feet in thick- 

 ness, projecting from the banks of the Disung river about a mile above 

 the village of Boorhatli ; the other situated in rising ground, about a 

 quarter of a mile from the first, was exposed for 200 yards in length, 

 and numerous small springs of petroleum emerged from beneath it. 

 From these Captain Jenkins' servants collected about five seers of 

 petroleum in a few minutes. The Disung is navigable for six months 

 of the year. 



Beds of coal were also observed by Captain Jenkins at Jeypoor, about 

 ten miles east of Boorhath, on the Bora Dihing river, a quantity of 

 which was raised by Captain Hannay and sent to Calcutta, but not ap- 

 proved of. Like all similar experiments on the quality of coal the re- 

 sults proved little, especially as we now understand the Assam Tea 



* Publislied in Journal As. Soc. 1838, pp, 948, 950. 



