110 
«ALL AND SIMPSON: COALFIELDS OF INDIA. 
by the North -Western Railway Company, and some three years 
later this company completed a branch line, 10 miles in length, 
between the collieries and Haranpur, Sind-Sagar Railway. The 
maximum output from tlie mines was produced in 1897, when 13,145 
tons were raised. In 1899-1900, owing to the poor quality of the 
fuel being mined, the collieries were closed down. 
Dandot. — The Dandot plateau is one of the few localities in 
which the coal deposits of the Salt Range have been found to be 
economically workable. It is situated in the Pind-Dadan-Khan 
sub-division of the Jhelum district, at a height of more than 2,000 
feet above sea-level. The coal seam occurs a few feet below the 
nummulitic limestone, and varies in thickness from 18 to 39 inches. 
The deposit is roughly basin-shaped, the rocks dipping at angles 
of from 0° to 14°. In 1887, R. D. Oldham ^ estimated that the 
plateau had an area of about 2 square miles and contained some 
5 million tons of coal. A more recent estimate by Mr. E. L. 
Hope, the late manager of the colliery, considerably reduced this amount. 
The coal is a friable lignite and is much jointed. An assay 
made in the laboratory of the Geological Survey of India showed 
that a sample had the following composition : — 
Moisture ........ 6'13 
Volatile matter ....... 36'81 
Fixed carbon ....... 47-17 
Ash 9-89 
The general run of the coal, however, is probably considerably 
inferior to this. It contains a large percentage of sulphur as iron- 
pyrites, and is very liable to spontaneous combustion. Experi- 
ments made in 1881 at the Rawalpindi Gas Works ^ showed a 
production from picked coal of 10,900 cubic feet of gas of 12| candle- 
power with a yield of poor sulphurous coke. 
Mines are worked at Dandot and at Pidh, about 3 miles to the 
north-east, by the North-Western Railway Company. They have 
been in operation since 1884. The production during 1910 was 
47,000 tons, the output showing a gradual decline since the year 
1899, when 81,218 tons were raised. In 1911 the North-Western 
Railway Company finally abandoned the mines, which were taken 
over by local contractors. 
1 MS. report, Geol. Surv. Ind., (1887). 
? Rec, Q. 8. I., XV, 03, (1882), 
