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The beds are highly disturbed, and the coal is too thin and irregular to pay for anything but surface workings, from which a certain amount of coal fit for brick and lime-burning could be extracted.

Exposures of small seams are frequent; but those of any value few. In the Bolan river, on its left-hand bank, some two miles below Mach, the following sections

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Samples were taken from the seams (a) and (b), which give the following results,

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Neither sample caked.

The dip here is 45°, and for systematic working the beds seem less favourably placed than the next locality to be mentioned; but a good deal of coal might be easily got at the surface were it needed for brick and lime-burning.

At the southern end of the Bohr hill the beds have a dip of only 20°; and in the westernmost of the valleys, which drain southwards, Kishen Singh found a coal seam giving a total of 2' 9" of coal and 1' 1" of partings. The number of partings would make it somewhat troublesome to work, but the low dip and proximity to the railway are distinctly in its favour.

A field assay of a fair average sample yielded :—

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The only samples procurable were highly weathered, and powdery. The coal did not cake in the assay, but it is possible that the unweathered part might cake in a proper oven, while the quality would doubtless improve, especially as regards moisture and ash, if the seam were opened.

In a progress report of the examination of the hills east and south-east of Quetta, made in April and May, Mr. Oldham states that coal occurs in tolerable abundance in the area under description, but that the seams are, as usual, thin, and the dips high.

The best coal, as Zarakhu valley, E. and S. E. of Quetta: coal.

regards both quantity and quality, is found in the Zarakhu valley. It occurs cropping out along the slope of a hillside with a considerable dip.

Along most of the outcrop traced, the coal could be worked by adits to a depth of about 200 feet, more or less, according to locality; and taking another 200 feet to the deep, the data give a result of 400,000 tons, gross, of which 200,000 may be taken as available. Allowing for possible extension of workable coal beyond the outcrop traced, it would not be possible to raise the estimate of available coal beyond 300,000 tons, and another 35,000 tons may be added for every additional 100 feet worked to the deep.

The coal, as shown by the assays, is of excellent quality, with a very small proportion of ash; but it is, like all the nummulitic coals of Baluchistan, very friable and difficult to light.

A more serious drawback to its utilization is its distance from the railway. In order to work it to advantage it would be necessary to lay down 15 miles of tramway, to a point on the railway 20 miles from Quetta. By road the distance to Quetta is 22 miles, and the cost of pack carriage for this distance would be prohibitive. In spite of these drawbacks, the importance of obtaining fuel on the Quetta plateau, and of saving the cost of carrying coal np the ascent, is so great that it may, under certain cicumstances, be found advantageous to work it.

Coal was also found high up on the hillside west of the As Tangi valley, at a point 4 miles north of the Pinki hill, by Sub-Assistant Hera Lall, who records the following section:

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Such thick seams of coal have not been met with in the tertiary beds at any other locality, so there is a suspicion that the thicknesses measured at the surface are not the true thicknesses, but due to slippage and disturbance. It is evident, however, that there is a fair quantity of coal here, but the locality is rather inaccessible.

In the Gunduk valley there are numerous exposures of coal, one of which is being worked by Messrs. Rustomjee and Co., but most of these are inaccessible, and small in thickness.

PUNJAB. Until the end of the working season, in May last, the elucidation of certain obscure points in the geological history and structure of the Salt Range was left to Mr. Middlemiss, who was ably seconded by Mr. Datta, in the tracing out of particular beds

Messrs. C. S. Middlemiss and P. N. Datta.

and the collecting of fossils.

I was led to infer that trouble might arise in the working and output of the Dandot colliery, which might necessitate additional opening Salt Range coal. in other parts of the field; and though I myself did not anticipate any very serious move of this kind, Mr. Middlemiss was advised to investigate the conditions of certain coal, or carbonaceous outcrops, along the foot of the hills.

These outcrops are however so small, and indicate such a faulted condition of the beds, with a corresponding very deep and unknown position of them under the plains beyond, that no hope can be entertained of their profitable development.

In the meanwhile, as I was informed by the Director of the North-Western Railway, the working and output of the Dandot coal is quite satisfactory enough for the present requirements: any diversion from the present area of operations is therefore unnecessary.

Hazara coal.

During the early part of the year, and for some time previously, the Department had been over and over again referred to regarding samples of crushed coal and carbonaceous shale sent down from the neighbourhood of Abbotabad in Hazara; where also drifts and other small mining operations had been tried, though with very unsatisfactory and unpromising results.

The hot weather of the Salt Range regions being on, I resolved to place Mr. Middlemiss at once in the more favourable climate of this Hazara coal tract. The coal is of like age with that of Dandot; only, as is more generally the case on the North-West Frontier, with these nummulitic exposures, the amount of folding and fracturing of the strata is so very considerable that but poor hopes were entertained by us of any thickness, or continuity of such seams as were known to occur.

Mr. Middlemiss' survey seems, however, to indicate rather more favourable conditions, though they are still poor; and he saw sufficient to enable him to issue a preliminary note, which appeared in the November part of the Records. His conclusion is, that the circumstances of the very high dip of the coal, and the frequency of complicated faults, will necessitate deep and expensive working; though he holds a sanguine belief that a large supply of serviceable fuel may be extracted from the outcrops.

As soon as the surrounding country, which presents considerable difficulties to close survey owing to its hilly and deeply denuded character, is fully examined, a more full report will be issued.

BURMA. The tin exploitation in Tenasserim under Mr. Hughes is still being carried on; but under considerable disadvantages in the way of climate and insufficient means of communication.

Messrs. T. W. H. Hughes and Dr. Noet

ling

Tenasserim: tin exploitation.

Mr. Hughes furnished a report on the season's operations up to 1st May 1890, which gives a most grievous tale of delays of all kinds arising out of the difficulties in engaging prospectors and Chinese workmen from Penang. Ultimately, the party, with M. Emile Hardouin as prospector, arrived at Mergui on the 29th November 1889. They visited Thabawleik, penetrating on their way back some of the lateral valleys of the Tenasserim river; and prospected Kahan hill. By the end of December they had left Mergui and reached Kyinmezeik, where they carried on the prospecting of the district as expeditiously as possible.

The results arrived at are, in Mr. Hughes' opinion, only sufficiently encouraging to recommend the demarcations of small plots in the Ply-ngau valleys and Bauhuni tracts for the Chinese system of working. Land rich enough for operations under European management has not yet been met with. He even gives this opinion with reluctance, as it has really been impossible to examine a sufficient area for full consideration of the question of ultimate success.

Mr. Hughes had to take special leave for six months, from which he was permitted to return to Mergui, vid Penang by the middle of November, picking up the prospecting staff and workmen on the way.

The latest information, up to the 1st of January, is, however, more encouraging; in that the returns of tin since the resumption of operations are much better than hitherto, while some excellent ground has been found.

Upper Burma: coal, oil, ruby and tourmaline mines.

Dr. Noetling was engaged in field work from January (when he left Calcutta for Burma) to the end of August, in directing the demarcation of the oil-bearing tracts in the Magive, Mingyan and Pakkoku districts, and in surveying the coal fields, ruby and tourmaline mines in the Shan states. During September he was engaged in the office of the Financial Commissioner of Rangoon, in compiling his notes; and since the beginning of October he has been again occupied with the demarcation of the oilfields. He has submitted the following reports to the Financial Commissioner, Burma:

On the Coal-fields of the Northern Shan States.

On the Namsaka ruby mine in the Mainlon States.
On the Tourmaline mines of Mainlon.

On the Salt spring near Bawgyo (Theebaw).

Increase of the Burma party.

The Burma party has been further increased by the deputation of Dr. Warth, late of the Forest Department, who was transferred to the Geological Survey of India, on return from furlough. Mr. Lake will also, on his return from leave, join the contingent. Geological investigation.-As may be inferred from the preceding resumé of the field operations of the Survey, the larger, and indeed more important, results have been in economic research. Still geological investigation has not been allowed to stand still; and some advance has been made in Baluchistan, the Punjab, and Burma.

In Baluchistan Mr. Oldham has removed some of the obscurity hanging over certain vexed questions which remain since the journeys, and following reports, of W. T. Blanford and Griesbach in the Bolan, Harnai, Quetta, and Kandahar country during 1880-82. His studies were distributed over three tracts, viz. in the country adjoining the Sind-Pishin Railway between Sharigh and Spintangi, and between that and the famous oil region of Kattan; in the Bolan valley; and, lastly, in the hills east and south-east of Quetta.

A very interesting report on the Sind-Pishin and Kattan region was published in the August part of the Records, wherein he describes the stratigraphy of the rocks of the following groups (descending order) :—

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NUMMULITIC.

(Unconformity and overlap).

Spintangi limestones (with shales); not always easily separable as a group. Ghazij shales. (Locally coal-bearing; fossil plants and shells; deltaic, 1,000 to 3,000 feet in thickness.)

Dunghan limestone. (Upper beds fossiliferous; 500 to 1,800 feet thick.) Chuppar shales. (Fragmentary plant remains; traces of contemporaneous volcanic activity.)

Unfossiliferous limestone. (Oldest rocks seen in Harnai valley.)

In the Bolan the structure of the country is much more complicated than that of the Harnai. Here the oldest rocks are limestones, associated near their upper limit with sands and argillaceous shales of cretaceous age. In a section near Churi the presumably upper cretaceous rocks are directly overlaid by a pale fossiliferous limestone, containing numerous nummulites and alveolinæ of the upper nummulitic type, which relation would, if the upper nummulitic age be determined, establish. an unconformity between the two.

The groups of the nummulitics, as made out in the Harnai valley, are fairly recognizable, though considerable variation in their facies is met with in places.

The Ghazij group is very characteristically represented in the neighbourhood of Mach. The coal is accompanied by sandstones, and numerous fossils, but seems to be on a lower horizon than that of Sharigh and Harnai.

Near Bibinani the clear limestones of the Spintangi group are overlaid by nummuliferous limestone of the Nari group, whose presence had already been recorded by Dr. W. T. Blanford.

There are numerous extensions in this Bolan valley of disturbed gravels, raised above the level of the recent gravels, which Mr. Oldham considers must be regarded as of Siwalik age, and show, in a most striking manner, the absolute continuity of conditions of deposition between the latter half of the tertiary, and the recent periods, which is a feature of the geology of the countries north and west of the Indo-Gangetic alluvium.

As regards the hills east and south-east of Quetta, the rocks belong to the same. groups referred to above, the high hills overlooking the Quetta plain, and the Dashti-bedaolat being of compact limestones of cretaceous age.

The Nari group occurs overlying the Spintangis, and resting directly on the Ghazij shales.

In this area Mr. Oldham has retained the local names of Ghazij and Spintangi for two of the groups of the nummulitic series. The paleontology of these groups has not been worked out, but careful consideration of their lithological character, and their position in the series, leaves, he considers, little reason for doubt that they represent the Ranikot and Khirtar groups of Sind respectively.

Mr. Middlemiss' work in the Salt Range will, to some extent, have the effect of modifying Dr. Waagen's generalizations arising out of the rather meagre materials he had before him for his latest views on the age of the Neobolus beds. After the Obolus beds and the Conularia bed had been fully examined; the more central and western parts of the area were gradually taken in hand, with the main object of following out the Boulder bed through its many appearances, keeping its relation to the Olive series, Conularia beds and Speckled Sandstone in full view as much as possible; and in gathering data concerning the positions and habits of the

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