PART 3.J 
MecllicoU: Mo/ipani Coal-field. 
07 
observations are close enough to leave no doubt on the point. The change in the quality 
of the coal is quite in accordance with the crushed condition of the strata. The coal from 
the vertical seams is friable and dusty, and burns without smoke, all the bituminous matter 
having apparently been extracted from it; it is consequently slow to ignite, but has strong heat¬ 
ing power ; the coal in its normal state at the Narbada Company’s mines has the usual com¬ 
position of Indian coals ; the subjoined analyses made by Mr. Tween exhibit the change :— 
Carbon. 
Volatile. 
1. Narbadd Company’s mines: top seam (river workings) 
2. „ „ „ 2 feet band of spurious cannel coal 
3. „ „ main seam 
4 . „ 
5. Sitariva Company’s mines: top seam 
6. „ „ main seam 
7. 
'• » »» »> 
55*8 
331 
60*4 
51'9 
679 
59-0 
70*7 
32-6 
24'6 
39-0 
33‘4 
8*8 
15-0 
9’5 
Ash. 
11-6 
423 
lo-e 
14*7 
23-3 
26*0 
19-8 
The Sitariva Company have sunk a shaft on the main vertical east-west seam to a depth 
of seventy feet, without any change, save a slight tendency to assume a northerly underlie. 
They have a shaft on the same coal about 200 yards oft’ on the east side of the river, where the 
seam has already lowered to a dip of 65° to north-north-east. The Narbada Company’s 
collieries are in a corresponding position on the flat side of the flexure, at the south-east 
angle, where the strata are bending round the point of the anticlinal; and the galleries bring 
to sight many minor features of disturbance that could not he detected at the surface. Smalt 
as are the workings (the most extensive is about 400 feet long by 150 broad), they are on 
all sides stopped out against faults; it is true that none of these seem to have any great 
throw; hut their frequency, and the crushing of the coal that attend them, is a serious 
obstacle and loss. It is to be expected that the coal that exists between the two present 
collieries is at least as troubled as that seen in the Narbadd Company’s pits, probably more so. 
Rough estimate of the field so far as proved. —Any estimate of the available coal-supply 
in this region must be affected by two considerations that do not present themselves in other 
Indian coal-fields : these are, the frequent high dip of the seam, and the fact that almost at 
all points thick overlying rocks riso into hills of considerable height close above the out¬ 
crop of the coal. Both these conditions will involve the necessity of deeper mining than 
has yet been.attempted in India; in many places here they tvould restrict the mining to what 
can be obtained from shafts or galleries on or near the outcrop. Applying this rule to 
the known length of outcrop in the Mohpani neighbourhood, we may arrive at an approximate 
estimate of the coal from existing data: it may be said that there are about two miles of 
known outcrop, the coal being obscurely visible at the surface at several spots along the 
curved line between the two collieries, but its thickness or its quality in that position has 
not been tried. Assuming it to maintain a moan thickness of workable coal between the 
aggregates at the two collieries, say twenty-five feet, at the rate of 1,000 tons per foot of 
thickness per acre of seam, we should have 4005000 tons for every sixty-six feet down the seam 
along the whole length of two miles. As in many places the seam may 1* followed for 
many hundred feet, it is apparent that, without any very unwarrantable assumption, we may 
count upon a large supply of coal for many years to come. 
Probable further extension of the field. —It is, as I have said, unfair to the field to pass 
an estimate upon it from the very insufficient information at present available ; there is much 
hope that the coal will be found far beyond the limits taken in the estimate just given. I 
will now attempt to indicate the directions in which an extension may be sought. There are 
four considerations involved in a judgment: wbat may have been the original extent of the 
basin of deposition ; how far the Barakar group ever extended in that basin; how far the 
coal may have been eo-extensivc with the group; and whether any portion of tire group, 
and hence of the coal which is its uppermost member, had been broken up and destroyed 
before the Mahadeva deposits succeeded. 
