1-8 
Records of the Geological Survey of India. 
[VOL. lit. 
everything beneath them, and looking to the great irregularity with which the coal rocks are 
overlapped, and the impossibility of drawing any sound conclusion either as to the place or depth 
below the surface at which coal might be found, fully justifies our putting the entire of this area 
out of calculation in estimating the extent or quantity of the coal in these Wardha river fields. 
A boring will be put down to the north of this large area of trappean rocks where the lower 
bed s are again visible over a small area near Panj oorn i. a village about six miles north-west of 
W urrora and probably near Wurrora itself. But, with this exception there will be little use 
in testing the rocks further in that part of the field at present. It is not at all intended to 
assert that the coal group does not extend under a considerable part of this area, but if it does 
so extend, the chances of finding it are so uncertain, and the depth at which it probably occurs 
so doubtful, and in any case so much greater than in adjoining areas that, for the present at 
least, the coal even, if found, could not be worked to the same advantage or economy as 
elsewhere. 
A boring has also been put down in the Berar country well into the centre of the field 
and some six miles in a right line from the river Wardha. This was at a place called Raj ur, 
which is near Naith or Net, and about ten miles to the north-west of Win town. This was 
simply intended to test the continuance of the coal under the upper rocks, which cover the 
whole surface there. Up to the latest reports, 15 feet of coal had beeu cut into there, quite 
sufficient to show satisfactorily that the rocks continue. 
Two or three more borings will now prove the whole of this northern part of the field 
with perfect sufficiency, and with detail quite ample as a basis for commencing the actual 
work of raising coal. 
To the south of Chanda, the sections at Balarpur, where good coal is visible at the water 
level in the river Wardha, in the territories of His Highness the Nizam or on the west side 
of the river, have been examined. It was concluded from this examination that there was not 
much prospect of finding this coal extending into the Chanda district, as it had in all 
probability been very largely denuded or washed away and its place now filled in with beds 
of great thickness of alluvial clay and saud, &c. Still borings were put down to test the 
fact, and the rocks were proved at both sides of a marked fault which crosses the section from 
north-west to south-east, the rocks being down-thrown on the east, hut to what extent it 
was not possible to calculate from the limited exposure visible. These borings proved the 
existence of a few thin beds of coal, 1 foot to 14 I'vet, but nothing worth working.* The full 
examination of the northern part of the field bad then become so much more urgent that 
the tools were removed there. 
All the country south of Balarpur still remains to be examined. There is a certainty 
of coal occurring in the Nizam’s territories in the area between the Pemgnnga and the 
Wardha, and a few borings are there required to test the thickness and quality of this coal. 
The area stretching from north to south throughout the district of Chanda from east of 
Wurrora to Bhanduk and Chanda, and southwards by Balarpur to the Wardha 
near Kinnirri, is all composed of rocks which belong to series above the coal. It is there¬ 
fore possible that coal may be found to extend under these rocks and so cover a large area. 
But there is not a trace of these lower coal bearing rocks visible anywhere along the line, 
excepting close to Chanda town. And as the covering rocks dip sharply to the east all along 
here a short distance only in that direction would throw the coal so deep below the surface 
that it could not he profitably worked in competition with the more accessible and more 
favorably placed coal elsewhere. This area ought to be tested by a series of well selected 
borings at long intervals, and if coal be proved, as I fully anticipate it will be near to 
Chanda, the indications should be followed up carefully. There is no surface evidence what¬ 
ever to guide the observer excepting there. I have already mentioned why the borings 
at. Chanda had been deferred until the monsoon weather. But when they are commenced, 
it will be needful to exercise a little more geological skill than had beeu shown before, for 
the holes which were bored were altogether outside or below the horizon of the thick coal 
which it was sought to prove 1 
No other group of beds containing coal in a workable thickness has been traced in the 
field, and none other probably exists. It has been shown that this group of thick beds of 
shale and coal maintains a constant horizon in the general series, that it is largely and 
irregularly overlapped by the beds which succeed it. and that with a great amount of variation 
* It is staled (Snpp. tin/ India, Jan. IS, 1 - 70 , p. 30.) that a} feet of coal were proved at a depth of 120 feet 
from surface, within half a mile of Ualarpur!! Noun of the records of the borings hear unt this assertion. 
