338). Ball thought that, if improved methods of reduction should
be employed, the Chanda ore might be worked profitably. As regards
the rest of India, with the doubtful exception of Upper Assam, he had
little hope of success. Full details of the working of the mines in
the Jabalpur, Narsinghpur, and Chanda districts of the Central
Provinces are given in pp. 384 to 392 of the same work. See also _I.
G._ (1908), vol. x, p. 51; and _The Oxford Survey of the British
Empire_ (Oxford, 1914), vol. ii, Asia, pp. 143, 160. A powerful
company formed at Bombay in 1907, operating at a spot on the borders
of the Central Provinces and Orissa, hopes to turn out 7,000 tons of
'steel shapes' per month.
Coal is not found below the very ancient sandstone rocks, classed by
geologists under the name of the Vindhyan Series. The principal beds
of coal are found in the great series of rocks, known collectively as
the Gondwana System, which is supposed to range in age from the
Permian to the Upper Jurassic periods of European geologists
(_Manual_, vol. i, p. 102). This Gondwana System includes sandstones.
A coalfield at Mohpani, ninety-five miles west-south-west from
Jabalpur by rail, was worked from 1862 to 1904 by the Nerbudda Coal
and Iron Company; and is now worked by the G.
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