Steam Navigation to the Pacific, 6(*c. 363 



mining operations are of the utmost importance, and their suc- 

 cess must, I should suppose, be decisive of that of your enter- 

 prise ; it must be too expensive, one would think, to bring coal 

 from England, and it is most happy that Providence has supplied 

 it in such immense quantities in the very regions where it is 

 wanted, not only for navigation coastwise, along your immense 

 ocean barrier from Panama to Patagonia ; but for the supply of 

 those points in the Pacific — Gallipagos Islands, Sandwich, Ota- 

 heite, &c., where depots will anon be established for the naviga- 

 tion of the Pacific, and eventually around the world. Your 

 South American coal is a treasure of inappreciable value, and 

 with the aid of trained English miners and engineers, I cannot 

 doubt you will succeed. I dare say, however, that your New 

 England " common sense," will suggest expedients that do not 

 always occur to those who have been trained to move in a beaten 

 track. Can you not drain your water out at a lower level, by 

 carrying in galleries connected by shafts ? You do not say which 

 way your strata incline — if towards the declivity of the hill or 

 mountain in whose sides the coal crops out, then your drainage 

 will be easy. You will of course look out for vallies and gorges, 

 and all those positions to which you can make a communication 

 so as to have the water go off" by gravity — for even a long tunnel 

 may be a less expense in the result than a steam engine, and it 

 is vastly more simple and easy in the management. I have 

 made some little blow-pipe experiments upon the coal you have 

 sent me ; that from the upper layer appears more like lignite, 

 which you know, is merely wood of trees, altered by time, pres- 

 sure, and fermentation. The lower stratum is good bituminous 

 coal, and from the abundant flame with which it burns, it must 

 be well adapted to produce steam. It is very probable, that your 

 next stratum below will be still better, as having undergone a 

 more perfect assimilation, for you are aware that the true coal, 

 (as distinguished from lignite,) is also a product of vegetable de- 

 composition, but the plants were of a much earlier date, and in 

 general not composed of firm woody fibre, but more soft and 

 succulent. It would require extensive and skillful geological ob- 

 servations, on the spot, to decide whether you have the true bitu- 

 minous coal formation of Europe and of North America, or a coal 

 of a more recent date and less perfect — for such coals there are, 

 as that at Brora in Sutherland, Scotland. The lignite belongs to 



