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BENGAL.

274

Coal Resources of India (1867), gives an approximate estimate of about fourteen thousand million tons of available coal in the Ram'ganj field,

The coal, though very adequate for ordinary railway purposes, and

after allowing for waste, loss, small coal, etc.

inferior to

English,

is

even for steam vessels, with the exception of ocean-going steamers; and a fortiori for stationary engines. The coal of the Ram'ganj coal-field, like most Indian coals, is a non-coking bituminous coal, composed of distinct laminae of a bright coal and of a dull earthy rock, with a large proportion of volatile matter and ash, the amount of the latter averaging about 15 per cent., as against af per cent, in English coal, and ranging from 8 to 25 per cent. A sample of a very pure coal from the Sarsol mine gave the following results ash, 2

"5



—

per cent.

ment of RaniganJ English

coal

is

Volatile,

The

40 per

coal in India,

generally

still

cent.

fixed carbon, 57*5 per cent.



principal drawbacks to the extended employ-

and the reasons why the expensive by sea-going

employed, especially

steamers on long voyages, are the

following:

—

(i)

The non-coking

property of Ram'ganj coal; (2) the small proportion of fixed carbon, upon which the value of coal for heating purposes depends ; (3) the large proportion of ash, a larger quantity of Raniganj coal being therefore required to perform the

English coal



(4)

its

same duty

liability to

as a smaller quantity of

spontaneous ignition, which

due to the large quantity of iron pyrites heavily worked lines of railway in India,

in the coal. viz.

is

good

mainly

The two most

the East Indian

and the

Great Indian Peninsula, use respectively Indian and English coal, and their relative

consumption

pared with 75 tons on the

There are

also coal

is

150 tons per mile on the former as com-

latter.

mines

in

Bankura

District,

but they are unim-

portant. ia?iufacture was formerly a Government monopoly, principally on along the sea-coast of Orissa, and in Midnapur District. A description of the manufacture of salt by means of evaporation by fire has been given in the article on Balasor. The process of manufacture by means of solar evaporation will be described in the Account of PuRi District. The State abandoned its monopoly of salt manufacture many years ago, and it is now carried on by private parties, subject to a Government duty of 5s. per cwt. At the present day, almost the whole of the salt consumed in Bengal is imported by Liverpool ships from the Cheshire mines. Small quantities are still manufactured in In 1881, the Orissa and the Twenty-four Parganas under excise rules. Bengal salt duty yielded a net revenue of ;^2, 452,41 7. Iro 7i Several attempts have been made to work the iron ores of Bengal, but hitherto without any decisive success from the mercantile point of view. A company was started a few years ago, and erected

Salt

77

carried

.

—