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COAL. 91
view
to utilizing it in the manufacture of artificial fuel, but the process
found to be requisite was too expensive, and the difficulty of boring
in these crushed rocks is so great as to render it improbable that this
coal will ever be commercially available.
One seam is 11 feet in thickness. The average of five assays of the coal gives the following composition :—
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Into
a description of the complicated geological relations of these beds
with those forming the adjoining mass of the Himalayas I do not now
propose to enter. Mr. Mallet has arrived at the conclusion that the coal measures
are older and underlie the highly metamorphic rocks of the outer
slopes. To do justice to his arguments would require more space than is
at present available for the purpose.
The
fact that this locality is the principal one north of the Ganges where
Gondwana rocks occur is of great interest in connexion with any
discussion as to the early relations which existed between the
Peninsular and Himalayan regions, and, indeed, the formation of the
Himalayas themselves.
ASSAM.*
Five distinct coal fields have been explored and reported on in the valley of the Brahmaputra, in
* Mallet, "Mem. Geol. Survey of India," vol. xii. pt. ii "Manual," vol. ii. p. 701.
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