Ee 
Steam Navigation to the Pacific, &c. 363 
mining operations are of the utmost: importance, and their suc- 
cess must, I should suppose, be decisive of that of your enter- 
prise; it must be too expensive, one would think, to bring coal 
from England,-and it is most happy that Provides has supplied 
it in such immense quantities in the very regions where it is 
wanted, not only for navigation coastwise, along your immense 
ocean barriet from Panama to Patagonia; but for the supply of 
those points in the Pacific—Gallipagos Islands, Sandwich, Ota- 
heite, &c., where depots will anon be established for the naviga- 
tion of the Pacific, and eventually around the world. Your 
South American coal is a treasure of inappreciable value, and 
with the aid of trained English miners and engineers, I cannot 
doubt you will succeed. I dare say, however, that your New 
England “common sense,” will suggest expedients that do not 
always oceur to those who have been’trained to move ina beaten 
track. Can om sa Sit Water out at a lower level, by 
in galleries ec 2d by shafts ?- You do not say which 
way Yo 3 atl if towards — the declivity of the hill or 
mountain in whose sides ania ‘crops out, then : ize 
will be easy. . You will of course look out for vallies and gorges, 
and all those positions to which you can make a communication 
so as to have the water go off by gravity—for even a Jong tunnel 
may be a less expense in the result than a steam engine, and it 
is vastly more simple and easy in the management. I have 
made some little blow-pipe experiments upon the coal you have 
sent me; that from the upper layer appears more like lignite, 
which you know, is merely wood of trees, altered by time, pres- 
sure, and fermentation. The lower stratum is good bituminous 
Ge. and from the abundant flame with which it burns, it must 
be well adapted to produce steam. It is very probable, that your 
next stratum below will be still better, as having undergone a 
more perfect assimilation, for you are aware that the true coal, 
(as distinguished from lignite,) is also a product of vegetable de- 
composition, but the plants were of a much earlier date, and in 
general not composed of firm woody fibre, but more soft and 
succulent. It would require extensive and skillful geological ob- 
sepatiabe, oe the spot, to decide whether you have the true bitu- 
tion of Europe and of North America, or a coal 
aeecinios date and less perfect—for such coals there are, 
as that at Brora in Sutherland, Scotland. ‘The liguite belongs to 
