Steam Navigation to the Pacific, 6f'c. 359 



Steam Navigation Company, which I had previously formed in 

 England. Two of our steam ships, of about seven hundred tons 

 each, the Peru and Chile, arrived in this port in fifty-five days 

 from England, passing through the Straits of Magellan, from sea 

 to sea, in thirty hours ; sails were employed when the winds were 

 fair, otherwise steam, and the voyage may be said to have been 

 one of the most brilliant ever undertaken. The field for steam 

 navigation in these seas is so ample that our first voyages came 

 off most successfully, proving and fulfilling every statement 

 made: unfortunately, however, the directors in England, neg- 

 lecting to send a supply of coal, as previously arranged, the opera- 

 tions of the company have ceased, for the present, and I am now 

 engaged in this place in mining for coal, an operation never before 

 undertaken in this country, and which of course presents a thou- 

 sand difficulties. My first object when I arrived here was to make 

 a practical examination, to ascertain the strength of the coal, and 

 see its influence upon our boilers and fire bars ; for this purpose I 

 proceeded south, with the double object of proving the coal and 

 exploring Valdivia and the island of Chiloe. After some unsatis- 

 factory experiments, we finally came to such an arrangement of 

 our fire bars as to produce a result decidedly favorable ; the excess 

 of expenditure over the best Welsh coal was twenty-seven per 

 cent., which is nearly as good as Newcastle coal. The formation 

 of clinker is great, but it is not of an adhesive character, and the 

 fires are easily cleared ; the coal seems to possess no sulphur, and 

 there is nothing disagreeable in the smoke ; the ashes are white 

 and the coal free from smut. The coal lies in horizontal strata, 

 rising or falling not more than ten or eleven degrees; is about 

 three to four feet wide, and is found, most generally, cropping out 

 on the precipitous sides of hills : the upper stratum is generally 

 soft ; the next stratum, which is what I now send you, is found 

 from twenty to forty feet beneath ; and I am now engaged in 

 sinking a perpendicular shaft for the purpose of finding a third 

 stratum and still better coal. Some two or three cargoes of this 

 coal have been shipped, and spontaneous combustion has been 

 produced, which set fire to the vessels ; it must be considered that 

 the coal first used was never mined, and was taken merely from the 

 surface. I have ascertained that in two instances the vessels which 

 have been set on fire had vegetable matter on board — the first was 

 a cargo of wheat stowed over a deep bed of coal : the next, the 



