PART 1.] 
Annual Report for 1870 . 
11 
But as the whole thing appeared to me to he a baseless illusion, I had to point out the reasons 
for this opinion. This may best be done by quoting the letter addressed to the Government of 
India on the matter; in this, after speaking of the terms on which it was proposed to offer 
such a reward for the finding of coal, and stating my belief that nothing was likely to result 
from such a procedure, but a useless waste of time and money, I went on to say,—“ I am 
convinced of this not ouly by the general experience of the result of such offers, but even 
more by the grounds on which the offer is recommended. This recommendation appears 
to me to he based on an entire misconception of the facts regarding recent discoveries 
of coal, and it may, therefore, be well briefly to indicate, for the information of the Consulting 
Engineer for Railways in Madras, as well as others, bow those facts really stand. Major 
8. Stewart refers to a generalized statement of mine as to the geographical limits within 
which the great development of coal-measures in India has been confined. That this was a 
very general statement he would have seen from the fact, that the coal of Assam, of Eastern 
Bengal, and of many other places were excluded; and so far as the argument that the product¬ 
ive coal-fields of India are confined to one belt across the peninsula, it was of exceedingly 
little importance whether the southern limits were given at the 20th degree or at the 18th 
degree of north latitude. In fact, if the map which accompanies the report referred to 
had been looked at, it would have been seen that the coal-hearing rocks were shown to 
extend below the 20th degree of latitude, and also that the country still further to the 
south was shown to he unknown geologically, regarding which, therefore, nothing was 
attempted to he asserted. The southern limit of the coal-hearing rocks has since then been 
carried further to the south than was then (1807) known, but only within the limits then 
indicated as unexamined.” 
“ It is entirely correct to state that great difficulty presents itself when any attempt is 
made to form general conclusions regarding the mineral resources of so vast a country, 
But this difficulty only arises from the impracticability of actually seeing this vast area 
and the necessity of trusting to the information of others. There is no real difficulty in 
determining the facts wherever we can examine the country. Reports of mine are also 
quoted, stating that coal had been found in the borings in the Chanda district at places where 
its existence was entirely unknown or unsuspected. It was clearly not unknown or unsus¬ 
pected by the Geological Surveyors, as they selected the points at which the borings were put 
down. But it was asserted that it could not possibly exist there by so-called practical 
engineers, the very class whose aid it is proposed now to invoke.” 
The letter goes on to argue, that because coal has been found at Midnapore under 
laterite, and because a considerable portion of the Madras Presidency presents a surface 
formation of laterite also, it cannot he seen that the discovery of coal should he a more 
improbable event there than at Midnapore. 
“ We are not in any way responsible for the statements or descriptions given in news¬ 
papers, but those quoted above certainly do not represent the facts correctly. The seam 
of coal (the thickness of which by the way is as yet quite unknown) does not underlie a 
thick superficial deposit of laterite in the ordinary or proper sense of the term. It occurs 
in a series of beds of sandstone, &c., of totally distinct ago from the laterite, and which had 
been disturbed, broken up, and very largely denuded or worn away before the nearly horizontal 
beds of the laterite and lateritous clays were spread over them ; that is, the continuity or 
position of one formation is not the slightest clue to the continuity or position oi the other. 
The lower roclcs also which crop up in the neighbourhood are not crystalline. The crystalline 
rocks show a long way to the west. But wherever there is any trace ol other rocks under 
the laterite, those rocks are sandstones, which have become much impregnated svith iron from 
the laterite above, and have, therefore, lost a good deal ol their distinctive characters. It is 
