PART 3.] 
Meddlcolt, Shapur Coal-field. 
79 
appearance) they represent a thickness of 700 to 800 feet. The outcrop is very little in¬ 
terrupted, but no coal is seen; and such earthy beds as are exposed are only slightly car¬ 
bonaceous, yet nearly the whole group must be here exposed. 
The two great trap dikes south of Golai about correspond with an anticlinal flexure. 
The silapti reach. ^ the mou ^ df the Gonapur stream they are beautifully exposed, 
cutting sharply through a strong bed of fine pale greenish-yellow 
sandstone of decided Talchir character. It contains, however, small strings of bright 
coal; and the gray sandy clay under it, as seen up stream in the Tawa, is slightly car¬ 
bonaceous. The low northerly dip of the sandstone is not in the least disturbed by the 
dikes, each about 20 yards wide. The sandstone is continuous down the loft hank of the 
Tawa, gradually vising to the west and then to north, where the gray clay rises with 
it. Under this another strong bed of fine sandstone crops up in force, ending at a line 
of broken and crushed ground. As in the Dolari area, I have coloured these doubtful 
beds with the Barakar group. Beyond the crush, which may also include a small fault, 
a very typical Talchir rock appears, massive greenish-gray splintery clay with thin 
hands of hard compact limestone; it is overlaid by thick sandstone like the preceding. All 
have a low northerly inclination, soon becoming quite flat, and then turning up to the 
north. These beds are very well seen in. the stream between Silapti and the Tawa, and 
threads of coaly matter are observable in the sandstone. They end along a marked line of 
fracture crossing the river to west-30°-north ; some Baraltar-like sandstone occurring im¬ 
mediately to the north of it, and then there is a blank of fifty yards in the section. 
It would he impossible to follow closely the lines of this Silapti inlior to east or west, the 
ground is so flat and covered with clay. In the stream north-east of Golai only Barakar 
beds are seen, with some crops of very poor coal. The feature north of the Golai dikes is, 
on the whole, a blunt wedge of lower strata exhibiting two flat synclinal folds with inter¬ 
vening crush, elevated with faulting, and throwing off the coal-measures to the south and 
north. 
The Temni reach. 
To the north of the blank in which the last section ends, thin-bedded measures come 
in with carbonaceous shales and poor coal, probably representing 
the middle measures of the Dolari area. The dip is at first 
southerly, soon turning over in a flat anticlinal, and the northerly dip lasts up to the con¬ 
fluence with the Machna. The outcrops are nearly continuous throughout, strong sand¬ 
stones of undecided character; the few earthy partings being also uncharacteristic, and but 
faintly carbonaceous. The whole are, however, Barakar. A thin seam of coal occurs under 
the great sheet of sandstone on the left bank, at the Temni ford. I saw nothing to suggest 
a concealed outcrop of strong coal. 
So far, in what might bo called the main section through this Machna area, there is 
very small appearance of useful coal deposits. It was from out¬ 
crops in the Machna itself under Mardanpur that the large quan¬ 
tity of coal was taken which gave such satisfactory results in a trial on the Great Indian 
Peninsula Railway in 1873. Prom the confluence of the Machna and Tawa a great sheet of 
strong Barakar sandstone rises gently to westwards along the bed of the former stream. 
Under Douri a long deep pool has been cut by the water through this rock into an underlying 
earthy bed, which is quite concealed, the same mass of sandstone continuing above the 
pool and extending on the left hank up to where the river bends to the west-south-west. 
For a hundred yards or so near the bend the sandstones on the right hank have a consider¬ 
able north-westerly dip; and in the bed of the river is visible the crack along which, by 
faulting, this abutting stratification takes place. There must also be a south-westerly or 
some equivalent line of fracture at the back of this upheaved mass of beds. It is at the 
The Mardanpur outcrops. 
