Miscellaneous* SIS 



Biographical NoticBy with Extracts from the Correspo7idence, of the 

 late Mr. Motley, who was massacred at Kalangan, May Ist, 1859. 

 By Henry Denny, A.L.S. &c. 



Mr. James Motley was born May 2nd, 1822, at Osmondthorp 

 House, near Leeds, and inherited from his father, Thomas Motley, 

 Esq., an ardent love for Natural History. A near relative, in a 

 letter to me, says, " I was much with him in his early years. In 

 our walks he could not pass a flower, or snail, or bee, that was new 

 to him without stopping to examine it, and asking all about its 

 habits. He knew the names of all the trees and plants at Osmond- 

 thorp before he could pronounce them ; and his fondness for botany 

 and geology increased with his riper years. He was educated at 

 St. Peter's School, York, under the Rev. Mr. Creyke (now Arch- 

 deacon), and from thence entered St. John's College, Cambridge, to 

 study for the Church ; he eventually, however, chose Civil Engi- 

 neering as a profession, to assist in some extensive mining operations 

 which his father was connected with in Wales. These proving an 

 unfortunate speculation in a pecuniary point of view*, he obtained, 

 at the recommendation of Sir H. de la Beche, an appointment in a 

 similar capacity at Labuan, and proceeded thither in February 1848, 

 where he remained five years, when, owing to some disagreement 

 with the Company under whom he went out, he left Borneo and 

 passed a year at Singapore, when he again returned to Borneo under 

 an engagement with a Dutch Company, formed at Batavia for working 

 coal-mines in the Netherland Indian possessions. This proved an 

 undertaking of no small labour, as he had to commence operations 

 by a trigonometrical survey of the country and fixing the limits 

 of the Company's possessions, which were only vaguely expressed in 

 the contract. The spot selected, after more than 100 borings, was 

 at Kalangan in Banjarmassing, on the south coast of Borneo. This 

 speculation promised to be a successful one, the coal being of 

 excellent quality, the pit containing three seams of coal of four feet 

 six inches, three feet, and two feet respectively. The transport, how- 

 ever, from the pit was difficult, on account of the small river which 

 was capable of carrying coal-boats being lost in a dense forest. 

 Mr. Motley overcame this obstacle by cutting an entirely new one, 

 which proved an interesting geological operation, as throwing much 

 light on the formation of the coal-measures of the island which he 

 considered as undoubtedly late Tertiary. He says, "I have here 

 a coal-field so plainly growing under my eyes, and containing just 

 the same plants as I find fossil in the measures we are working, 

 that probably no one was ever in so favourable a position for ob- 

 serving even very minute points of resemblance. I have, in fact, 

 the same state of things which would exist in the fen-counties of 

 England if they possessed a tropical climate, or if man had never 

 been there with dykes, dams, canals, and cultivation. The phse- 



* At this period he published a volume of poetry entitled ' Tales of the Cymri/ 

 founded on the early traditions of Wales, which evinced considerable ability, both 

 as a scholar and poet. 



