1831 .] 
Journey from Calcutta to Ghazipoor . 
131 
If we recollect that beds of the red clay, which have been called laterite, and I 
believe pieces of the accompanying iron-stone, form, as it were, a fringe to great part 
of the Bay of Bengal, covering the edge of the granite of either peninsula, and lying 
between it and the sea, we may have some idea of the causes which have formerly 
been in operation, from the effects we now see. Of which causes the many hot 
springs in different parts of the country, are probably the only remains at present. 
At Penang, the only other place in which I have yet seen the granite of India, the ex- 
tent to which decomposition has taken place is astonishing. Auvergne has been 
cited as a remarkable instance of granitic decomposition ; but in the former place 
I have seen it more remarkable and extensive than I recollect to have done in the 
latter. 
From Bancureh we go in a direction about N. N. W. for 32 miles to Raniganj, 
on the bank of the Damiida, where the Coal Pits are situated. We are on a gradual 
descent the whole of the way ; though the further we leave Bancureh behind, the 
more level does the conntry before us become till vve at last appear to have returned 
to the flat plains of Bengal. Before reaching Raniganj, Chatna hill, a rounded gra- 
nite looking mass, that we see at Bancureh to the N. W. bears to the east of south 
from us, and from this a succession of points and ridges appear to reach to the 
north of the west, to the bases of which the low country extends, so that we are 
partly encircled hy them. We see the rock appearing through the soil shortly 
after leaving Bancureh, a fine grained slaty gneiss, though for no great extent ; but 
for several miles before reaching the Damiida, all is hidden from us. 
On the southern bank of the Damiida, which is very little below the level of the 
plain, we find beds of a brownish, crumbling sandstone, and a micaceous shale, nearly 
horizontal ; but having crossed to the opposite side, we ascend a tolerably steep slope, 
to the height of from 150 to 200 feet, over strata of the same crumbling sandstone; 
dip irregular, generally from west to S. west. There has been a small eruption on 
the side of the hill, probably occasioned by the spontaneous combustion of 
coal strata beneath. 
Blocks of a porous lava, with pieces of hard slate imbedded in them, of semi- 
vitrified slate sticking together, of burnt shale, red and white, and scoria, are mingled 
in a mass not less than 130 yards across, and in some places from 12 to 14 feet thick. 
The whole, or nearly so, appears to have burst forth in a line of rents under the 
crest of the hill, and to have pushed obliquely down a hollow in the slope, till it 
reached the flat ground, through which a streamlet (the Hunada) runs near its 
junction with the Damiida. 
From the upper to the lower extremity of this long heap of veins, is about a quar- 
ter of a mile, and we see from the waterworn channels that intersect it, that it is 
much less than it once was. Sometime ago in the main bed of coal 75 ft. below 
the surface, the workmen had reached to within 30 yards of the western end o£ 
what I have described as a line of rents, when a quantity of what they called cinders 
burst in upon them, and nearly filled the gallery in ivhich they were, and which 
has been abandoned in consequence. Cinders they are not, but merely burnt shale, 
such as would be produced by heating shale in the open air. 
About 10 yards to the west of this spot the strata had shifted, so that instead of 
rising obliquely to the mass of heated coarse rubbish, they rise directly against it j 
but as these shifts are not uncommon in the strata, we cannot draw any certain 
inference from them. 
The bed of coal at present worked is '8 or 10 feet thick, and is probably the 
main bed in the formation ; for they have sunk to some depth beneath it, but the 
