Capabilities of the Country.—­These are of the usual description.  The soil is productive enough, but the labour of clearing the drier spots is excessive.  Excellent rice grounds exist in abundance between Beesa Lacoom and Namroop Puthar, but the cultivation of this, as well as of all the other necessaries, is limited to the quantity absolutely required.  Scarcities of grain are of frequent, indeed almost of annual, occurrence; and this is chiefly owing to the pernicious influence of opium or Kanee, to which all our Singphos are immoderately attached.  Of the Mineral Productions, coal and petroleum were the only ones we met with.

The coal occupies the greater portion of a precipitous part of the sandstone composing the left bank of the river Namroop.  Three large veins have been completely exposed by the cutting away of the bank.  The coal is I believe of good quality.  The river immediately under the veins is very deep, and were it not for the rapids which intervene between the site of the mineral and the Booree Dihing, it would be difficult to conceive a spot affording similar facilities for the transmission of the mineral.  I must however, observe, that even in the dry season the river is navigable for small canoes as far as the site alluded to.  During the rains no difficulty whatever would be experienced in the carriage, as rafts might be made on the spot.  No use is made of the coal by the natives, nor did they seem to be aware of its nature.

Of the Petroleum {117} no use whatever is made, although we have ample experience from its universal use by the Burmese, that it is a valuable product both as affording light, and preserving in a very great degree all wooden structures from rot and insects.  The springs occur in four different places, all close to the Puthar:  of these three occur on the low hill which bounds the Puthar to the southern side, and one on the Puthar itself, at the foot of the range alluded to.  The springs are either solitary, as in that of the Puthar, or grouped, a number together; the discharge varies extremely from a thin greenish aqueous fluid to a bluish grey opaque one, of rather a thick consistence:  the quantity poured out by these latter springs is very considerable.  On the surface of all, but especially on these last, an oleaginous, highly inflammable fluid collects in the form of a thin film.  The jungle surrounding the springs ceases abruptly, the ground around, and among them, being covered with stunted grass and a few small herbaceous plants.  Elephants and large deer are frequent visitors to the springs; of the former, the tracts are frequent, and they are sometimes shot here by the natives.

Vegetable Products.—­The jungles afford several kinds of bamboo, some of which are of value; generally speaking the trees are not large, with the exception of a gigantic Dipterocarpus, wood-oil or dammar tree; of this particular tree I have seen specimens measuring 100 feet from the base to the first branch.  The wood is of no value, nor have I seen any use made in Assam of the resinous secretion, which is in great vogue on the Tenasserim Coast for the construction of torches, etc.