COAL REGIONS OF FORMOSA. 157 



on; the natives still declaring that the search was useless, and we still finding hits of coal along 

 the way. At a mile from the town we came to several piles of coal, on the bank of a stream 

 we had been following up ; and here our Kelung companions quitted us and returned back to 

 town. We crossed the stream, and following a path which turned into a short valley branch- 

 ing off to the southward, with the help of some country people we soon, to our great pleasure, 

 discovered some mines. Having no lanterns, or means of exploring them, and it being now 

 late, we returned to the ship, gratified with our first day's work. 



Wednesday, 12th. — Our Amoy man had promised to come early this morning, and to conduct 

 us to some mines, which, he said, were far along the coast ; and I waited for him a long time, 

 but he did not appear. 



Accompanied Captain Abbot, at his request, in a semi-official visit to the authorities on shore. 

 In. the afternoon, went with Captain Abbot and Purser Allison to purchase the coal (rejecting the 

 dust) that we had seen in store in town ; but the owner had now taken alarm at something or 

 other, and refused to sell. Doubtless, the mandarins had interfered, and the man seemed almost 

 afraid to speak to us. We were taken afterward to the house of a mandarin whose name is 

 Le-chu-ou, and title Hip-toy, said to be the chief mandarin of the place. He, as well as the 

 owner of the coal, told us that it came from an island on the eastern coast of Formosa, one 

 hundred miles from this. He expressed himself willing to have us purchase the coal. 



Thursday, IZlh July. — Started for a thorough exploration of the mines seen on Tuesday, the 

 party consisting, besides myself, of Mr. Williams and four seamen, armed. Left Mr. Breese 

 in Kelung, to endeavor to conclude the purchase of the coal stored there. The map appended 

 to this will show the position of the mines visited to-day. We first went to those marked 

 a, o, c, the letters indicating three openings into the bed of coal. These openings are about 

 thirty inches wide and four feet in height, and bring us, at the distance of ten or twenty feet, 

 to the coal seam, in which drifts are continued horizontally to the extent of about one hundred 

 and twenty feet from the entrance. In miner's language, passages or cuttings to the coal are 

 called "tunnels;" when in the coal seam, they are called "drifts ;" and when there are two or 

 more parallel drifts in the same seam of coal, the cuttings from one drift to the other are 

 termed il cross-headings." 



I soon discovered that the three openings or tunnels at this place all led to drifts in the same 

 seam of coal, the two lower drifts having several cross-headings between them. The seam was 

 three feet in thickness, its strike or direction was northwest and southeast ; it had a southwest 

 dip of 15°. The coal is remarkably pure, from its commencement at the floor to the roof; but 

 it is mined in a most awkward and wasteful manner. Their only implement is a pick, with 

 which they dig into it in such a way as to shatter it very much ; the fragments are put into 

 shallow baskets, and these on a flat board, and they are thus dragged over the mud to the 

 entrance. All the coal which we saw, both at this mine and at the creek below, consisted of 

 such small fragments ; but, on trial with hammer and chisel, I found no difficulty in getting it 

 out in large pieces, of which, as specimens, we brought away as much as we could carry. The 

 floor and roof are both argillaceous rock ; and the softness of the latter is the only obstacle to 

 the easy working of this seam ; the roof caves in if left to itself only for a few feet in width, 

 and would need wooden supports constantly and carefully applied. 



The whole character of this seam of coal, and its position, are well adapted to successful 

 mining operations. I am told that in Great Britain a seam of three feet is considered as prom- 

 ising a further and more certain continuance than any other thickness ; the extent of this I had 



