'File 35/64 III Minerals in Oman. Madrasai geologists' researches' [‎42r] (92/276)

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whose prevailing colours are red and white. These are unconformably over
laid by beds of eocene, probably upper eocene, age.
3. The country passed through was everywhere barren to a degree and
covered by an almost continuous sheet of stones, shattered by the intensity
of the heat they are exposed to, and the rapid changes of temperature at sun
rise and sunset. A few stunted thorn bushes and a few dried up tufts of herbage
are all that can be seen in the way of vegetation, and animal life was
represented by a few birds, one hare, four bats, and numerous flies. At Ealiz
and from Faliz on to Suk Sur fresh water is found in the Wadi A seasonal or intermittent watercourse, or the valley in which it flows. Faliz, but else
where there are only a few scattered water holes of small size and yielding a
limited supply of brackish water.
4. The coal is found among rocks of tertiary age, classed by Dr. von Krafft
as miocene, which occur in the centre of a synclinal, and are, consequently, the
newest rocks of the district. The outcrop ends, by the closing in of the
synclinal, about 4 miles north of Migel on the one hand and 3 miles south of
Musweh on the other, giving a total length of about 10 miles, along which
the dip of the rocks is towards the centre from either side.
5. The first locality visited was about half a mile south of the camp at
Musweh water. Here there is a stretch of low-lying level ground, carved out
by a stream from between two beds of hard sandstone, about 200 yards long by
30 broad, which is shown in the photograph. In this and in the stream beds
draining down from the east there are numerous exposures of coal; after clear
ing and opening up the coal seams at the southern (further) end of the low
ground, the section given in the right hand column of the statement appended
was measured. It will be seen from this that eighteen seams were found on this
section of which two measured over 4 feet in thickness. At first sight this looks
promising enough, but there were soon facts tending to modify the first favour
able impression. In the next ravine to the south, not half a mile off, an
excellent section is exposed of the rocks occupying precisely the same horizon
as the coal seams, and here not a trace of coal is to be seen. There is no room
for doubting that the coal is really absent and not merely hidden, for it
happens that there is a freshly exposed section on the hillside extending right
across the whole thickness of the beds in which the coal was seen, and had
there been a trace of coal it could not have escaped detection.
6. Having seen this I returned to the original locality to investigate it as
fully as possible. With this object I had a fresh set of pits opened, along the
outcrops of the coal seams, at about 450 feet from the first set, that being as
far as I could go without finding the outcrops covered with a thick deposit
of boulders, which would have necessitated much work to clear the outcrops.
Along this line, whose section is given in the left hand column of the statement,
I found three seams, not represented on the southern section, while one seen
on the southern is not represented on the northern section. This does not,
however, fully exhibit the variability of the seams in thickness, for No. 1 seam,
which has a thickness of 1 foot 10 inches on the northern, and of 1 foot 7 inches
on the southern section, was found to have a thickness of nearly 4 feet about
half-way between the two. No. 7 seam, which has a thickness of 1 foot
8 inches on the northern section, was found to thin out to 14 inches at 100 feet
to the southwards along the outcrop, to inches at 150 feet, and at 200 feet
it had come to an end, and could not be found.
7. A still more striking evidence of the limited extent of these coal
seams was found when I came to try and trace their extension to the southward.
With this object I had a trench cut across the hillside at a distance of about
250 feet measured up a slope of some 15°. This trench is just visible in the
photograph ; it was very shallow, but carried down to the solid rocks along its
whole length, which, as will be seen from the photograph, crosses the continu
ation of the same series of beds in which the seams Isos. 1 to 7, including the
two 4-feet, seams, are found Yet in spite of this, and of the small distance
from the thick outcrops not a trace of coal could be found.
8. Trom these facts it appears that the coal at Musweh does not occur in
extensive seams, but in mere pockets, which may reach a good workable thick
ness in places, but rapidly thin out. Such pockets are of no use, except to
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