Mediicoit, Garrow Hills. 
13 
again to the north at about 5°; and a little above the confluence, after some few score yards of 
blank section, rocks of an older type crop out with dips of 40° and 50° to southwards*. 
Ryuk Lamapara is on a ridge of fine, yellowish, white sandstone of the type asso¬ 
ciated with the numniulitic strata. The dip is hero 20° to S. S. W ; hut it immediately becomes 
lower, and all through the valley of Ryuk Ujanpara the numniulitic limestone shows on 
the river bank, quite horizontal. This rock is already greatly changed from its conditions in 
Silhet; instead of several thick bands of strong pure limestone, there is now altogether about 30 
or 40 feet, and for the most part earthy, ocbreous and concretionary ; selected portions of it 
might make good hydraulic lime and cement. It seems to be overlaid by earthy shaley beds, 
that are rarely exposed; hut I could not trace any symptoms of a carbonaceous deposit in this 
position, which is that of the coal at Cherra. 
The limestone runs quite horizontally up to the very base of a steep ridge running 
W. IST. W.; but within ten feet it bends up to a high dip, and is seen resting directly on a strong, 
coarsish, pale sandstone more or less felspathie. The two are thus apparently conformable; 
and there would be no direct- reason for considering them of very distinct ages. This ridge is 
very narrow; and there is a good section of it in the river. There may be about 200 feet of 
the sandstone with occasional partings of carbonaceous shale. Along the northern flank there 
is a thick band of such shale, in the midst of which occurs the coal searn. It is here a good 
deal crushed, being close to an axis of flexure, and dips at 80° to S. S. W. It is altogether about 
three feet thick, but very unequally carbonaceous, being locally split by strings of clay and of 
sand ; and it contains but few thin strings of coaly substance. The mass of what would be 
extracted as coal is a highly resinous batt or shale, full of small nests and strings of a kind of 
amber; it gives a woody sound when struck, is very tough, and breaks with a large conchoidal 
fracture; the lamination is observable throughout; but the whole lights readily and bums 
freely, leaving a skeleton of ash. 
There is a blank section of about 100 yards on the north side of the ridge, and then strong 
sandstone, like that over the coal, appears on both banks, with a very slight northerly inclina¬ 
tion, continuing so throughout the long N. S. reach of the river. Where the river turns east¬ 
ward this dip increases, bringing down a limestone identical with that of Ryuk, and resting 
on the strong sandstone. There is here a shallow synclinal, the limestone being q. p. horizon¬ 
tal opposite fieju Lamapara, and rising rapidly on the south flank of the ridge at the point 
of which stands Seju Ujanpara. The streamlets down the face of this ridge undercut the 
strata, and disclose the coal seam at about the same depth from the limestone as before. These 
rocks all strike into the gorge of the Sumesurri at and north of Seju Ujanpara; the 
coal and the soft shales associated with it are of course eroded and concealed, but we now find 
the beds which underlie them—these are about 100 feet of strong coarse sandstones just like 
those over the coal; and they rest against and upon the gneiss. There is an excellent section 
of the junction : the dip of the sandstone increases rapidly, being 80° to S. TV. at the contact; 
but it is a natural junction, parallel to the dip of the sandstone, the base of which contains 
rolled pebbles and boulders of the crystallines. The chief mass of the high irregular ridge 
over S e j u is of gneiss, great blocks of this rock abounding in the steep watercourses through 
the sandstones at the base of the ridge. 
The coal near Seju is precisely similar to that already described, only perhaps a little 
better; and the sequences of the strata in the two places so exactly correspond, that there can 
be little doubt the coal belongs to one and the same band; the southern outcrop being due to 
the remarkable flexure of the rocks between the valleys of Ryuk and Seju. Whatever little 
use might be made of this coal, if required on the spot, it is evident that it would not supply any 
extensive demand, or repay any difficult transport. The latter obstacle seems insuperable: 
the Sumesurri, although a considerable stream, is choked with silt throughout the greater 
part of its eourse below Ryuk, where tke rapids begin to be troublesome. 
If the great thickness of cretaceous rocks, known in the section of the Cossiah hills, is 
represented at all on the Sumesurri, it must be by these bottom sandstones and shales con¬ 
taining the coal, here 400 to 500 feet in thickness. All the circumstances support the conjec¬ 
ture that such is the case; as, the description of the rocks and their mode of relation to the 
nummulitic limestone. In the Cossiah hills too there a,re frequent symptoms of a carbonaceous 
element in the cretaceous rocks. Shortly before leaving Cherrapoonji I noticed a bed of shale, 
* The limestone noted on the district map of Mymensing—(scale, 1 miles equal one inch) just above 
Salagaou Ujanpara, docs not show on the river; it is probably a mistake, 
