GEOLOGY AND MINERALOGY. 479 
products of coal are every day being enlarged by obtaining oil, dyes, and other 
chemical products therefrom. The great extension of steam navigation, ocean 
and coasting, the increase of steam motive-power for manufactures and machi- 
nery of various kinds, the demand for coal in different quarters for illuminating 
purposes, and even for fuel in many of our rapidly progressing colonies in 
Africa, Australia, and the East, render the more general discovery and working 
of fossil fuel in those dependencies of immense importance to their future suc- 
cessful advancement. Fortunate, therefore, is it that coal exists in our South 
African colonies, in New South Wales, Victoria, Tasmania, and New Zealand; 
in Labuan, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Vancouver. In many parts of 
British India, too, coal has been discovered and successfully worked. Although 
the supply of this valuable mineral is no doubt illimitable, yet with the exten- 
sion of trade and settlement, of manufacturing industry and steam navigation, 
it may be useful to point out the various and increasing sources of supply, and 
to direct more prominent attention to them in a commercial point of view. 
Analyses of the special qualities of the coal would also be especially useful. 
It is chiefly within the last quarter of a century that the immense increase in 
the factories of England, in her railways, steam-vessels, steam engines, gas- 
ometers, and foundries, have rendered coal of such great value to the advance- 
ment of our country’s commerce, comfort and civilisation. In the year 1772, 
Pennant gave as a grand feature in the national commerce that 351,890 chal- 
drons of coal were shipped that year at Newcastle, of which about 260,000 
chaldrons formed the London supply. Now The export’ from that port to Lon- 
don alone reaches 1,250,000 tons; the foreign exports exceed 7,300,000 tons ; 
while the annual produce in the kingdom amounts to nearly 70,000,000 tons. 
A consideration of these figures will serve to convey some idea of the immense 
present and daily increasing consumption of coal: Coal is the indispensable 
aid to all industrial progress; and even in this metropolis we require now about 
5,000,000 tons annually. 
In the Cape colony deposits of coal have been found near Burgher’s Dorp, 
and on the surfaces of several farms in the Albert district, but is too high in 
price to warrant much being done with it; 3s. being the lowest price paid for 
a muid, or sack of 23 bushels. It is of good quality, and burns well, but being 
_ taken from the surface is not so good as that obtainable by digging to a depth 
of some feet, an experiment which the Dutch farmers are loth to try, on account 
of the trouble. Some specimens obtained by digging are stated to have been 
found equal to many descriptions of English coal. It is found of a fair quality 
in the hills to the north of the Tugela River; and anthracitic coal, probably as 
good as that in general use in the United States, is in considerable quantities 
near Washbank and Sunday Rivers. This coal, in other parts of the world, 
has lately acquired a considerable degree of importance, and a high value, being 
almost pure carbon, and burning without smell or smoke. There is also coal 
found in Natal of excellent quality, of the ordinary bituminous description, in 
the ravines between Biggarsburg and Umzinyati River, 63 miles only distant 
from Maritzburg, the capital; and there is another in a small river near Biggars- 
burg, in lat. 28°7’, long. 29°25’, which is intersected by a vein of trap. Bishop 
