78 
BALL AND SIMPSON: COALFIELDS OF INDIA. 
almost a certainty that both in the direction of Khodargaon and of 
Pali shallow sinkings would touch it." Although unwilling to 
hazard a close estimate he considered that within a depth of 
500 feet there are at least one hundred million tons of coal 
available. 
In 1902 borings undertaken on behalf of the Rewah Durbar, 
met with encouraging results and the field is now looked upon as a 
valuable reserve against the exhaustion of the Umaria coalfield at 
some far distant period. 
Sohagpur. — This, the main area of coal measures exposed in 
south Rewah, has a superficial extent of nearly 1,600 square miles 
and stretches from the river Son to the river Rer. The number of 
coal seams is small, and for such an area there is not an abundance 
of coal. The following are the most promising outcrops found by 
Hughes ■} — 
A coal seam exceeding 5 feet in thickness comes to the surface 
between Bargaon and Kelhauri and can be picked up along its 
outcrop for a distance of 10 miles, appearing thrice in the Son 
river. Subsequent exploration by G. F. Reader ^ in 1899-1900, 
showed that this seam varies in thickness from 15| feet (containing 
13| feet of good coal) on the Bageha stream near Amlei to 4 feet 8 
inches on the Son river near Bokahi. The dip is about 3°. On 
the Jamuniha stream near Nandnah, seams respectively 5 and 
41 feet thick outcrop and can be traced over a very large area. 
At Bhalmuri and Dumarkachar outcrops a seam of coal exceeding 
7 feet in thickness, but including a twelve inch band of carbona- 
ceous shale. This seam can be traced in the bed of a stream for 
a mile and a half and its continuation is met with in other streams 
further afield. In a stream north of Balbahara a 10-feet seam of 
coal outcrops and its probable extension is found in streams to the 
westward. 
Of the seams examined by Reader workable thicknesses with 
fair qualities of coal were found to occur south of Sabo in a 
tributary of the Bageha stream, near Rampur in a tributary of the 
Katna stream, as well as in the Amlei-Bokahi area mentioned above. 
» Op. cit. 
» Oenl. Rep., 0. S. 1., 1899.1900, p. 69. 
