Xov. 10, 1856.] DE CRESPIGN-Y ON BORNEO. 207 



rich in vegetation useful to raan. The island had, however, a great variety of 

 valuable minerals. It is indeed the richest mineral country in the East. Its 

 coal formations were most extensive, stretching right across from Bruni to 

 Eanjarmassin. Mines are worked at both extiemities ; by the English at the 

 north-west, and by the Dutch at the south side. An English company, called 

 the Eastern Archipelago Company, was mining upon an extensive scale, and 

 had invested an immense sum of money, not less perhaps than 160,000?., 

 consisting of steam-engines, pumps, and there was even a railway of a mile. 

 It was expected soon to produce 60,000 tons of coals a-year. They knew the 

 vast demand likely to arise for coal in connexion with our Eastern steam navi- 

 gation. Iron was very abundant : he believed it to be a magnetic ore, from 

 which, the Dyaks are enabled to manufacture steel and iron superior to the 

 best Swedish ; at least it was so in the estimation of the natives, because they 

 gave a higher price for it. Sulphuret of antimony was found in considerable 

 abundance, more plentifully than in any other country. The history of the 

 discovery of that mineral was curious enough. A gentleman of bis acquaint- 

 ance, like many other English gentlemen fond of scribbling in newspapers, 

 wanted a subject to write about. He went to a bazaar for one, and found it 

 in a mass of antimony. This was in ]823. A small portion of it was smelted 

 to a regulus, and it turned out to be a sulphuret that had been brought from 

 Sarawak ; and most of the antimony we now import, 1500 tons annually, 

 comes from that country. Sir James Brooke, by the aid of these antimony 

 mines, was enabled to maintain the best government, native or European, ever 

 established in Borneo. He had a population of nearly 30,000 under his 

 authority, consisting of Dyaks and a great many other tribes ; and considering 

 what a strange, rude, anomalous population he has under him, it is certain he 

 administers his government with eminent skill. Gold is produced in con- 

 siderable quantities on the west coast. He believed there were 50,000 Chinese 

 working the gold mines on the west coast, but they were much discouraged by 

 the Dutch government. They produced about half a million pounds sterling 

 annually, which is about one-thirtieth part of the produce of California or 

 Australia, and that after they have been working there for a whole century. 

 Diamonds were also produced. Among the vegetable productions was gutta 

 percha, discovered by a relative of his in 1847. He saw small quantities of it 

 employed in making knife-handles and horse-whi] s. Being in the medical 

 profession, he thought that gutta percha would make very good splints and 

 bougies, and he sent portions of it to Bengal, and those specimens are now in 

 the East India House : that was the beginning. He received the gold medal 

 of the Society of Arts ; and the Bresident of the India Board, at Mr. Crawfurd's 

 request, had the kindness to confer upon his son a very handsome appointment 

 in the service. From the returns of the Board of Trade, he saw that there had 

 been imported of gutta percha, almost all from Borneo and Sumatra, not less 

 than 23,000 cwts. With the assistance of this gutta percha, w^e knew what we 

 were able to do ; we shall be able, for example, to interchange conversation 

 with our cousins across the Atlantic, in the coui'se of a few months. There 

 was another article of vegetable growth produced in Borneo that was curious 

 enough — india-rubber, caoutchouc. Forty years ago, half a ton of india-rubber 

 would serve Europe for ten years. The article was then used only for rubbing 

 out pencil marks. The quantity now imported was 45,000 cwt. annually, and 

 formed the raw material of a vast number of articles. The tolal value of it 

 was 350,000?. Borneo produced sago, now become a considerable article. 

 All these w^ere things of modern discovery ; and he had no doubt that Lieu- 

 tenant De Crespigny, in the course of his journej's, would be able to discover 

 a great many more. He possessed qualifications that well fitted him for the 

 task he had undertaken ; and he earnestly hoped, on the return of that gentle- 

 man, that they should be all present to hear his interesting papers read. 



