100 
Record* of the Geological Survey of India. 
[vol. n. 
Those are very close approximations and fully boar out the value of such assays. In all 
cases, it is worth notice also, the result as per assay is more favorable than that by actual 
trial. Both methods of testing the value prove that good useful fuel exists near Googoos 
in considerable quantity'. 
The explorations are being carried on with vigour, and the results will he given from 
time to time. 
In connection with this enquiry, it is necessary to give publicity here to some important 
frets regarding which considerable misapprehension has evidently' existed. In the last 
general report on the Central Provinces, the Chief Commissioner has (p. 76) said : ‘ so far coal 
has only been discovered in that known as the Damuda scries, and it remains to be proved 
whether the Kamptee group is carboniferous.’ This name 1 Ivamptee group ’ has never been 
published before or defined, and without such definition it is meaningless. It was a term 
used by Mr. W. Blanford on a preliminary sketch map of the district, copy of which was given 
to the officer of the Geological Survey working at Chanda for his information. But the term 
was simply one of convenience, and for temporary' local use as applied to a scries of bods in 
the vicinity, and signifying nothing more than those local beds ; simply' a name used instead 
of a long phrase to convey certain peculiarities in texture, &c. It is one of many such short 
names which, used for a time merely locally, give place to others when relations and connec¬ 
tions have been traced out. It has therefore never been published or used in any other way 
than as a term of convenience among the officers of the Geological Department. It is in fact 
meaningless without definition. 
But having thus been used, I may state that the local beds so called “ Kamptee” are nothing 
more nor less "than the Central Indian representatives of the great Panchet series of rocks, 
so well seen in the Eanigunj coal-field, still better developed in the Jherria, the Bokaro, the 
Karunpura, and other detached coal-fields towards the west, and which series of rocks can 
bo (and have boon) traced across all the intervening country up to Nagpur and Chanda. 
And as in the Ranigunj field, so in every other section oxposed throughout the hundreds of 
miles of country' (thousands of square miles) not a trace of coal is known to occur in them. 
This induction is far wider and far more satisfactory than any examination of the Central 
Provinces alone could afford. 
But, in addition to this, accompanying this extension and development of the Panchct 
series, there is, from east to west, a steady and continuous but rather rapid diminution of the 
true coal-bearing rocks (the Damuda series), so that the formation which in the east is of 
several thousand feet in thickness, with more than one hundred beds of coal of varying 
thickness, and which is there easily divisible into three groups, on passing to the west so 
dwindles down, that, in the Nerbudda valley and in the Chanda field, the total thickness of 
the formation docs not exceed as many hundred feet as it was thousands in the east, and that 
all the coal is confined to a few beds of great irregularity near the base of the series. Those 
facts also have been established not by any local investigation, but by a long continued and 
systematically carried out series of examinations and measurements spread over hundreds of 
miles of the country. 
There appears not a doubt as to the fact that coal does not occur in the Panchet rocks. 
There is equally no doubt that coal is not in the Talchir rooks below, and the simple point 
that remains to be proved in the Chanda field is the extent, thickness, and value of the coal 
which does accompany the Damuda rocks. If the country were not so much covered the 
limits of these rocks could readily be traced; there is no difficulty in distinguishing, them. 
But unfortunately there is a large part so concealed by superficial deposits that the existence 
of these coal-bearing rocks must be probed out by boring. And this is what is now being 
done by the Geological Survey for the Government of India. 
The borings at Chanda and at Ballarpur given above arc additional proofs of the very 
limited thickness of those rocks. The entire thickness of the Damuda series, as it there 
exists, together with all the overlying beds, is said to have been passed through within about 
235 feet. Of this more than one-third belongs to the upper series, leaving the thickness of 
the entire Damuda or coal-bearing formation here not more than about 150 feet! 
The \Sth October 1869. 
T Oldham. 
