24 
BALL AND SIMPSON : COALFIELDS OF INDIA. 
insignificant strings of lignite through it. In a stream near Tura, 
8 niiU's to cast-30°-south of llarigaon hill the deposit consists of 
few sticks of lignite scattered through sandstone. 
Sijii. — In the Ryuk valley a crushed coal-seam 3 feet thick, and 
dipping at 80" is found. It is very unequally carbonaceous being 
locally split by strings of clay and of sand, and it contains but 
few thin strings of tough, highly resinous coaly substance which 
burns readily leaving a skeleton of ash. In the Siju valley the same 
band occurs and here the quality of the coal is a little better. 
Neither of the exposures, however, contains coal of sufficiently good 
quality to bear transport to a distance. In former times an attempt 
to work the Siju coal was made by the Rajah of Sushung. 
Daranggiri. — This coalfield is situated on both sides of the Sume- 
sari river, about 6 miles north of Siju. The coal-bearing rocks are 
of Cretaceous age and lie in a basin on the gneissic floor of the 
hills. They have a total extent of about 50 square miles, but only 
the western half lying between Daranggiri and Rengchi, an area 
of about 20 square miles contains coal of workable quality. 
There are six coal seams, but only one is of workable dimen- 
sions. The latter varies from 3| to 7g feet in thickness and it has 
been calculated by Mr. LaTouche,^ who reported on the field in 
1882, that it contains 76 million tons of coal. 
The coal is bright-black in colour, becoming brown when crushed 
and contains numerous specks of resin. The assay of two samples 
gave the following average composition : — 
Moisture 8-8 
Volatile matter ....... 36'3 
Fixed carbon ....... 49-8 
Ash 5-1 
Except on the south-west where the rocks are bent up sharply 
against the gneiss, the rocks dip at very low angles ; and owing to 
the position of the coal above the main drainage channels most of 
it could be extracted and the mines drained by means of adits. 
In 1910 the attention of capitalists was drawn to the field and 
prospecting work was carried on. The considerable distance from 
a railway is the only bar to exploitation. 
Rongrenggiri.—i^ionie miles to the west up the valley of the Sume- 
eari another basin of Cretaceous rocks is found. In 1882 LaTouche ^ 
' Bee, G.S.I, XV, p. 175 (1882). 
« Ibid. 
