and Bituminous Coal-fields in China. 209 



= 1£ franc,=29 cents United states, per poud; which, if 

 our calculation be correct, is equivalent to «#" 11,60 United 

 States, or £2 8s. 3d. per ton of 2240 pounds English. We 

 perceive, therefore, that the best of fuel is expensive at Pekin, 

 and hence the necessity for resorting to the artificial com- 

 pounds and substitutes to which we briefly alluded. 



There is, however, a kind of coal sold in that city at a much 

 lower price, particularly when it is mixed with one-half of coal- 

 dust. This coal, in 1840, sold for one rouble per poud, which 

 is at the rate of ^7*75, = £1 12s. 3d. per ton. It is of in- 

 different quality, however ; giving out but little heat, and is 

 quickly consumed. 



The compound fuel, consisting of coal-dust and clay, is still 

 prepared after the mode described by the Missionaries last 

 century ; but its use is chiefly confined to the indigent classes. 



Coal Gas Lighting in China. — Whether, or to what extent, 

 the Chinese artificially produce illuminating gas from bitu- 

 minous coal, we are uncertain. But it is a fact that sponta- 

 neous jets of gas, derived from boring into coal-beds, have for 

 centuries been burning, and turned to that and other cecono- 

 mical purposes. If the Chinese are not manufacturers, they 

 are, nevertheless, gas consumers and employers on a large 

 scale ; and have evidently been so ages before the knowledge 

 of its application was acquired by Europeans. Beds of coal 

 are frequently pierced by the borers for salt water ; and the 

 inflammable gas is forced up in jets twenty or thirty feet in 

 height. From these fountains the vapour has been conveyed 

 to the salt-works in pipes, and there used for the boiling and 

 evaporation of the salt ; other tubes convey the gas intended 

 for lighting the streets and the larger apartments and kitchens. 

 As there is still more gas than is required, the excess is con- 

 ducted beyond the limits of the salt-works, and there forms 

 separate chimneys or columns of flame. 



One cannot but be struck with the singular counterpart to 

 this employment of natural gas, which may be daily witnessed 

 in the Valley of the Kanawha, in Virginia. The geological 

 origin, the means of supply, the application to all the pro- 

 cesses of manufacturing salt, and of the appropriation of the 

 surplus for the purposes of illumination, are remarkably alike 

 at such distant points as China and the United States. Those 

 who have read, even within the present month, the account 

 of the recent extraordinary additional supply of gas, and the 

 services it is made to perform at the Kanawha salt-works, must 

 be impressed with the coincidence of all the circumstances 

 with those which are very briefly stated in the previous para- 

 graph in relation to China. In fact the parallel is complete, 



Phil. Mag. S. 3. Vol. 28. No. 186. March 1846. Q 



