25a Difcovery of Coal at the Cape of Good Hope. 



faggots (the prodnre of fix or eight hours hard labour) fwing- 

 ing at the two ends of a bamboo carried acrofs the fhoulder. 



Some families have two and even three flaves, whofe fole 

 employircnt confifts in cUmbing tlie mountains in fearch of 

 fuel. The expenfe of a few fagiiots, whether thus collected 

 or purchafed by the load, for preparing viftuals only, as the 

 kitchen alone has any fire-place, amounts, in a moderate fa- 

 nii'v, (<- forty or fifty pounds a vear. 



The addition to the inhabitants of five thoufand troops, 

 and a large fl :et ftationed at the Cape, increafed the demand 

 for fuel to fuch a degree, that ferious apprehenfions were en- 

 tertained of iome deficiency fhortly happening in the fupply 

 of this neceffir\' article. Under this idea, the attention of 

 the Engiifh was liiected towards finding out a fubftitute for 

 Avood. The appearance o' all the mountains in fouthern 

 Africa being pailicularlv favourable to the fuppofition that 

 foflil coal might be found in the bowels of moft of thofe in- 

 ferior hills coiine6fed with and interpofed between them and 

 the fea, hi« excellency the carl of Macartney, well knowing 

 how valuable an acquifition fuch a difcovery would prove to 

 the colony, diredled a fearch to be made. 



Boring-rods were prepared, and men from the regiments 

 who had laboured in the collieries of England were felefted 

 to make the experiment. Wynberg, a tongue of land pro- 

 jefting from the Table Mountain, was the Ipot fixed on, and 

 the rods were put down there through hard clay, pipe clay, 

 iron-ftone, and fand-ftone, in fuccefllive ftrata, to the depth 

 of twenty-three feet. The operation of boring was then dif- 

 conlinued, by a d'fcovery then made of aftual coal coming 

 out, as miners cxprcis it, along the banks of a deep rivulet 

 flowing out oi the Tygerberg, a hill that terminates the ifth- 

 mus to the eaflward. The flratum of coaly matter appeared 

 to lie nearly horizontal. Immediately above it was pipe clav 

 and white fmd-ftone, and it reficd on a bed of inclurated 

 clay. It ran from ten inches to two feet in thicknefs; dif- 

 ferent in its nature in diiferent parts ; in fome places were 

 dug out large 'igneoys block?!, in which the traces of the 

 bark, knots, and grain, were diftinftly vifible ; and in the 

 very middle of thefc were imbedded pieces of iron pyrites, 

 running through them in crooked veins or lying in irregular 

 lumps. Other parts of the ftratum confided of laminated 

 coal of the nature of turf, fuch as by natur^ilifts would be 

 called I'tthaiithraxy and pieces occurred that feemed to diffef 

 in nothing from that fpccies known in England by the name 

 of Bovey coal. The ligneous part burned with a clear flame 

 without much fmell, and kft a refiduum of light white afkes 



likQ 



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