248 COAL 



2. British Columbia, (a) The principal coalfields of British 

 Columbia are on Vancouver Island, at Nanaimo, on the 

 eastern coast, where there is a magnificent harbour, and 

 excellent facilities for shipment. Nanaimo is opposite the 

 town of Vancouver, the terminus of the Canadian Pacific 

 Railway, and it is connected by rail with Victoria, the capital 

 of British Columbia. 



Sixty miles to the north of Nanaimo is Comox, where there 

 are more coalfields. 



(6) In Queen Charlotte Islands there are large deposits of 

 very good coal. These are opposite the town of Prince Rupert, 

 the terminus of the Grand Trunk Line. 



(c) There are also enormous deposits of coal in the south- 

 eastern extremity of British Columbia near the Crow's Nest 

 Pass. A branch railway from the Canadian Pacific goes over 

 this pass to Rossland in British Columbia. 



3. Alberta, (a) There are important coal-mines at Leth- 

 bridge, and other places in the south of Alberta, on the branch 

 line from the Canadian Pacific to the United States. 



(6) On the Alberta side of the boundary by the Crow's 

 Nest Pass. 



' The coal deposits of Canada are enormous, amounting . . . 

 to one-seventh of the world's known supplies, the estimate 

 for Alberta alone being over a million million tons. 



' A very large proportion of this great total, however, is 

 lignite, or lignitic, and the amount of this quality now raised 

 is the merest scratching of the surface of these deposits. . . . 

 Careful thought and study and scientific research are being 

 devoted to the ascertainment of the best means of utilizing 

 this lignite for developing power and for domestic purposes.' 1 

 Australian Coalfields. 



New South Wales is the chief coal-producing state of 

 Australia. The mines are situated up the Hunter River at 

 Maitland, at Newcastle (where there is a large export trade, 

 but where many of the collieries are nearly exhausted), at 



1 Royal Commission on the Natural Resources of His Majesty's Dominions* 



