Voyages of Discovery and Survey. 331 



application may have geological value, are given by Mr Adams, who 

 accompanied the expedition. Sir E. Belcher notices banks of mud, 

 at the Sabanon mouth of the Balungan River, east coast of Borneo, 

 covered by a living pavement of oysters, their hinges in the mud, 

 and their mouths upwards. 



In lat. 6° 14' S. and long. 4° 41' W., bottom was struck at 9690 

 feet ; four days previously no bottom was found with a line of 

 18,390 feet. It is very desirable that soundings in the ocean should 

 be multiplied. No doubt very deep soundings require calm weather 

 and a considerable expenditure of time, as was necessary when Sir 

 James Ross took his deep soundings in lat. 15° 3' S., and long. 23 

 14' W., 27,600 feet of line having been run out without finding bot- 

 tom ; but tliis would be amply compensated by the knowledge which 

 might be thus obtained of the inequalities of the ocean-floor. 



Two visits were made to Labuan, now a British possession, not 

 only important for its geographical position, but also for the coal dis- 

 covered in it. From communications made to the Museum of Prac- 

 tical Geology, chiefly from the Admiralty, we are enabled to state that 

 the coal observed on the north-east coast of Labuan by Mr Brooke (the 

 Rajah of Sarawak), Captain Bethune and Mr Wise, in March 1845, 

 and a specimen of which, weighing 280 lbs., was brought by Mr Wise 

 to this country, and presented to the Museum of Practical Geology, is 

 now found, by Lieut. Gordon and othei'S, to form part of a nine-feet 

 bed, extending from the N£. point in a WSW. direction for about 

 four and a half miles, and dipping about 24° to the SSE. This coal 

 rests upon a clay-bed, and is noticed as containing a quantity of small 

 lumps, described as resin, which were not found in the specimen above 

 mentioned. The coal of Labuan is merely a ^Jortion of a mass of 

 associated sandstones and shales, apparently intermingled with many 

 seams and beds of coal, varying in thickness, and which form a por- 

 tion of the adjacent mainland of Borneo, extending to, and more 

 inland than, the town of Brunai. The most considerable bed yet no- 

 ticed is up a stream named the Kiangi, tributary to the Brunai river, 

 and not far from the town, where it occurs eleven feet thick, and in 

 a highly-inclined position. Close to it is another bed, three feet thick. 

 From the statements of Mr Hiram Williams, who was sent by the 

 Admiralty to examine this coal-district in 1845, it has evidently 

 been much disturbed and contorted. Its relations to other accunm- 

 lations (limestones, igneous rocks, and others) in this part of Borneo, 

 is as yet not clearly determined, but subsequently to its contortion 

 this coal-bearing deposit has been subjected to denuding action, and 

 the edges of the beds left are covered by others containing shells simi- 

 lar to those in the adjacent seas. The coal-beds vary much in com- 

 position, as may be seen by the following analyses, made for the Ad- 

 miralty at the Laboratory of the Museum of Practical Geology. 



