PART 1.] 
Annual. Report for 1870 . 
9 
to time were all of the same kind, and all in similar pieces. The value of this coal was 
tested by assay, but any opinion as to the real value of the ‘ discovery’ was withheld until 
after actually visiting the place. In the middle of April I went to Midnapore, hoping to find 
that the boring (No. 4) then in progress would have reached the coal by the time of my 
arrival, and that I should be able to judge better of the nature of the bed from seeing how 
the fragments came up in the boring tools. I remained several days, but regret that I 
failed to see the coal, which was stated to have been reached some few days after my return. 
However, I had the advantage of cross-questioning the man in charge of the borings, 
and I ascertained from him that no actual bed of coal had ever been cut, but that, as he 
stated, throughout a depth of nine to eleven feet, the fragments of coal had been brought 
up mixed with the soft slush of the red clay in which the tools were sinking. Front 
the moment I first saw the specimens of coal said to have been brought up, I believed that 
they could not have been the result of the cutting of any solid bed. And it was on my 
stating this to the man that he at once explained the matter as I have said. His answers 
were clear and consistent, and the facts, if they were facts as stated, were easily reconcilable 
with a supposition that the tools had just struck the loose outcrop or top of a hod of coal, 
the detached and broken portions of which had become mixed up with the clays above. To 
test these statements, and to prove the continuity of the coal, if it existed, the boring 
rods were at once moved as far to the apparent dip of the supposed coal as the limits oi 
the jail grounds permitted. A boring in this locality ought certainly to give, if the statements 
were correct, a sufficient covering of rock over the coal to preserve it from any such 
admixture with the clays as appeared to occur in the other borings, and would also give a. 
satisfactory indication of the amount and direction of dip of the bed, ii it proved continuous. 
This boring (No. 5) was commenced, hut owing to the soft nature of the clays and 
sands through which it passed and the want of tubing, combined with the bad boring tools 
at command, it was necessarily abandoned before it had reached the required depth. After 
a delay of nearly a couple of months tubing was procured, and another boring was put 
down close by. This was in September. I communicated my suspicions to Major Swayne, 
and asked him to take precautions to prevent the possibility of any repetition of the trick, 
which I suspected had been played, of putting coal down the bore holes that it might he brought 
up again. And this boring was carried down some 220 feet, hut, as Major Swayne states, 
‘not a single trace of coal was found subsequently to the date on which these precautions were 
taken’. To satisfy himself more thoroughly, Major Swayne then very judiciously commenced 
a new boring close to (within a foot or two of) the first boring in which eleven feet yielding 
coal were stated to have been passed through. Before this was commenced, new and 
better tools had been procured from England, and the boring was rapidly and easily 
carried out. 
The boring had, however, only reached about half the depth at which the coal was 
stated to occur, when the man in charge disappeared without leave and under very suspicious 
circumstances. After he had thus absconded, bis bouse was searched under warrant from a 
Magistrate, and some coal was found partly in lumps and partly broken up. And on compari¬ 
son of this with that said to have been brought up from the borings, they proved identical. 
This, however, although very strongly corroborative of the suspicions entertained, was not 
sufficient to establish the facts : so the boring was continued and carried right through the 
whole depth at which the coal was, in the first instance, stated to occur. But not a trace of 
coal was found* 
These results appeared sufficient to justify stopping all further borings with a view 
to test the extent of the coal which was shown not to exist. One only will be continued to 
prove the actual thickness of the covering clays, sands, &c., in this part ol the district. 
