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
.
—
