1C COAL IN LABUH-AN. 



away to a clear white ash. In using it, however, 

 there is no saving in quantity, as the ' Nemesis,' in 

 steaming from Bruni to Singapore in June last, used 

 nearly the same quantity as she would have burnt of 

 English coal. It is probable that the whole of the 

 sandstone formation of the north and east coasts will 

 be found to produce this useful mineral in abundance, 

 it having been already found by the Dutch on the 

 great Banjar river, but in such a situation, and at such 

 a distance from the coast, as to render it unavailable 

 on account of the difficulty of transporting it. One of 

 the principal reasons which has caused our govern- 

 ment to form the settlement at Labuh-an is the value 

 that this mineral will prove both in time of peace and 

 in case of war. 



Next in abundance to the coal, as far as is yet 



The whirlwind lasted about an hour. No explosions were heard 

 till the whirlwind had ceased, at about 11 A.M. From midnight 

 till the evening of the llth, they continued without intermission; 

 after that time their violence moderated, and they were only heard 

 at intervals, but the explosions did not cease entirely until the 

 15th of July. Of the whole villages of Tomboro, Tempo, con- 

 taining about forty inhabitants, is the only one remaining. In 

 Pekte no vestige of a house is left : twenty-six of the people, 

 who were at Sumbawa at the time, are the whole of the population 

 who have escaped. From the most particular inquiries I have 

 been able to make, there were certainly not fewer than 12,000 

 individuals in Tomboro and Pek&te at the time of the eruption, 

 of whom only five or six survive. The trees and herbage 

 of every description, along the whole of the north and west sides 

 of the peninsula, have been completely destroyed, with the excep- 

 tion of a high point of land near the spot where the village of 

 Tomboro stood.'" 



