G. A. Lebour, and W. Mundle — Coal in Chile. 503 



Chile coal-fields viewed from a commercial point of view. These 

 vary according to the localities from which the materials of the 

 reports have been obtained, and are very likely correct in each 

 particular instance. 



Although the object of the present paper is to describe the newer 

 formations of Southern Chile from a purely geological, and not from 

 an industrial point of view, yet it may be as well to give, once for 

 all, our opinion as to the value of the coal hitherto known and 

 worked, or which may possibly be found there. The coals won at 

 Puchoeo, Coronel, and Lota, just south af Concepcion, are universally 

 acknowledged to be the best in the district. At Valdivia, con- 

 siderably further south, the coal is also well developed, but is not so 

 well situated foT being extensively worked. Probably, still further 

 south along the coast of Patagonia, coal may some day be profitably 

 worked,^ but there the amount of vegetation (to which Darwin hints 

 the presence of lignites may be due) will long stand in the way of 

 accurate geological surveys. 



At the other places where coal has been won, it has proved little 

 more than an inferior lignite, and even the better seams which we 

 have named above, and a detailed account of some of which will be 

 found in the measured section given below, can scarcely be much 

 commended when compared even with our inferior European coals. 

 Besides which it may be mentioned that the workable seams of 

 Coronel and Lota are nearly worked out by this time, and will there- 

 fore be not much longer of any importance at all. In the appendix 

 we quote from Mr. BoUaert's valuable paper, above referred to, 

 analyses of the coals from these localities. Leaving this portion of 

 our subject thus lightly touched upon, it will, perhaps, be best to 

 give now a full description of the stratigraphical arrangement of the 

 coal-bearing deposits at some particular point, which may serve as a 

 key to the mode of occurrence of the strata, in that district at least 

 which has been best studied. For this purpose we have chosen a 

 section at Coronel, the perfect accuracy of which we can vouch for 

 throughout, it having been measured bed by bed under the superin- 

 tendence of Mr. Mundle. The uppermost few feet of the country 

 consist, for the most part, of a red earthy loam, called locally Tierra 

 Colorada, which is due to the decomposition of the volcanic rocks 

 forming the higher parts of the interior. Below this red earth, 

 which often attains a considerable thickness, we come to the sub-soil 

 proper, which we will take as being the highest known member of 

 the series. This consists, at Coronel, of — 



Ft. In. 



1. A grey argillaceous sandstone, fine-grained and micaceous . . . 45 11 



2. Below this is a band of grey calcareous sandstone, also micaceous, but 



with small veins of Calc-spar 7 



3. We next come to a sandstone similar to ITo. 1, but containing fossils 



(marine shells). This bed is very constant, and is, it is thought by the 

 miners, identical with a similar one at Lota 21 6 



1 Vide " Inforrae sobre las rainas de carbon del sur de Chile," by Luis Larroque, 

 in the " Anales de la Universidad de Chile." Santiago, 1865. 



