Steam Navigation to the Patific, Sc. 359 
Steam Navigation Company, which I had previously formed in 
England. 'T'wo of our steam ships, of about seven hundred tons 
each, the Peru and Chile, arrived in this port in fifty-five days 
from England, passing through the Straits of Magellan, from sea 
to sea, in thirty hours; sails were employed when the winds were 
fair, otherwise steam, and the voyage may be said to have been 
one of the most brilliant ever undertaken. The field for steam 
navigation im these seas is so ample that our first voyages came 
off most. successfully, proving and fulfilling every statement 
made: unfortunately, however, the directors in England, neg- 
lecting to send a supply of coal, as previously arranged, the opera- 
tions of the company have ceased, for the present, and I am now 
engaged in this place in mining for coal, an operation never before 
undertaken in this country, and which of course presents a thou- 
sand difliculties.. My first object when I arrived here was to make 
a practical examination, to ascertain the strength of the coal, and 
see its influence upon our boilers and fire bars; for this purpose I 
exploring Valdivia and the island of Chiloe. After some unsatis- 
factory experiments, we finally. came to such an arrangement of 
our fire bars as to produce a result decidedly favorable; the excess 
of expenditure over the best Welsh coal was twenty-seven per 
cent., which is nearly as good as Newcastle coal. The formation 
of clinker is great, but it is not of an adhesive character, and the 
fires are easily cleared; the coal seems to possess no sulphur, and 
there is nothing disagreeable in the smoke; the ashes are white 
and the coal free from smut. ‘The coal lies in horizontal strata, 
rising or falling not more than ten or eleven degrees; is about 
thrée to four feet wide, and is found, most generally, cropping out 
on the precipitous sides of hills: the upper stratum is generally 
soft; the next stratum, which is what I now send you, is found 
from twenty to forty feet beneath; and I am now engaged in 
sinking a perpendicular shaft for the purpose of finding a third 
stratum and still better coal. Some two or three cargoes of this 
coal have been shipped, and spontaneous combustion has-been 
produced, which set fire to the vessels ; it must be considered that 
the coal first used was never mined, and was taken merely from the 
surface. I have ascertained that in two instances the vessels which 
have been set on fire had vegetable matter on board—the first was 
acargo of wheat stowed over a deep bed.of coal: the next, the 
