495 
probability will not only have material influence on the future de- 
stiny of the neighbourhood in which such a valuable repository of 
fuel has been found, but will also facilitate the intercourse by steam 
between this rising colony and our flourishing establishments in Van 
Diemen’s Land and Australia. ‘ 
In New Holland, in 1840, the Australian Company sold about 
27,000 tons of coal at Newcastle on the river Hunter, with a rapidly 
increasing demand. And we learn from the Port Phillip Gazette, 
Oct. 28, 1840, that at Western Port, near Port Phillip, an exploring 
party has discovered coal of excellent quality, but at some distance 
from water-carriage. 
Mr. Tradescant Lay has also laid before us.a notice of the ex- 
istence of coal, or valuable lignite, in the island of Borneo: should 
a large supply of it be found in this island, it may become a station 
of inestimable value for effecting intercourse by steam between 
China, India and Australia, and the great islands of the Malay Ar- 
chipelago. 
It appears by recent accounts from Valparaiso, that an abundant 
supply of good coal has lately been obtained at Talcahuano, with 
which the steamer Peru has made a successful voyage to and from 
Copiapo*. 
We have just learnt from Captain James Ross that good coal has 
been discovered in Kerguelen’s Land in the Southern Ocean. 
CHALK. 
Mr. W. Hamilton has found, near the ruins of Teos, a white ecre- 
taceous limestone resembling that described by Mr. Strickland near 
* Asno more coal is in process of formation, and our national prosperity 
must inevitably terminate with the exhaustion of those precious stores of 
mineral fuel which form the foundation of our greatest manufacturing and 
commercial establishments, I feel it my duty to entreat the attention of 
the legislature to two evil practices which are tending to accelerate the 
period when the contents of our coal-mines will have been consumed. 
The first of these is the wanton waste which for more than fifty years has 
been committed by the coal-owners near Neweastle, by screening and burn- 
ing annually in never-extinguished fiery heaps at the pit’s mouth, more than 
one million of chaldrons of excellent small coal, being nearly one-third 
of the entire produce of the best coal-mines in England. This criminal 
destruction of the elements of our national industry, which is accelerating 
by one-third the not very distant period when these mines will be exhausted, 
is perpetrated by the colliers, for the purpose of selling the remaining two- 
thirds at a greater profit than they would derive from the sale of the entire 
bulk unscreened to the coal-merchant. 
The second evil is the exportation of coal to foreign countries, in some 
of which it is employed to work the machinery of rival manufactories, that 
in certain cases could scarcely be maintained without a supply of British 
coals. In 1839, 1,431,861 tons were exported, and in 1840, 1,592,283 tons, 
of which nearly one-fourth were sent to France. An increased duty on 
coals exported to any country, excepting our own colonies, might afford 
aremedy. See note on this subject in my Bridgewater Treatise, vol. i. 
p. 535. 
