﻿398 SMITH. 



acquired, I shall dispense with further discussion of this feature, merely 

 stating that in the very limited workings of the Spaniards, several faults 

 were encountered, but according to Abella, who examined them all, they 

 were neither sufficiently great nor numerous to cause any serious diffi- 

 culty in mining operations. 



I shall now briefly summarize the geological history of this district, 

 before passing on to the discussion of its economic phases. We may 

 think of a basal mass of igneous rock with little or no sediments covering 

 it. AVhether this was a part of the mainland of a then extended conti- 

 nent, or an outlying island mass, we can not at present say. This ig- 

 neous mass must have had some elevation, otherwise the later sediments 

 could not have been formed. About this igneous mass a coral platform 

 undoubtedly formed in places. This grew up to a limiting plane, the 

 sea level. Upon this, the detritus of the hills poured and made a shelf. 

 This substructure of coral may have been lacking in other parts. At 

 all events, there Were low, tidal flats, girting the elevated igneous mass 

 at the beginning of the Eocene. These flats were the sites of unusually 

 rank forests, and deposits began to form which afterwards were to become 

 coal. Sinking of the whole mass must have begun at this time and 

 later elevation again occurred. There were periods of quiescence, followed 

 by oscillations of level, in which shales and coarse sandstone were alter- 

 nately deposited above the coal beds. Finally, there came at the close 

 of the Eocene a subsidence so great that the entire mass sank under the 

 sea and a coral mantle was deposited over the whole region. At the 

 close of the Miocene, which was the period of the deposition of the lime- 

 stone, there occurred a period of uplift and rather pronounced folding of 

 the strata. Since that time erosion has denuded the area of a large part 

 of its mantle of limestone, uncovering the coal-bearing formations below. 



geology: economic. 



HISTORY OF THE DISTRICT. 



As the complete history of the discovery of coal and operations in Cebu 

 is recorded in "The Coal Measures of the Philippines" 9 which is simply 

 a compilation and translation from the Spanish records, I will only in 

 this place summarize what was given. 



Coal was discovered in Cebu in 1827. The first concessions in the 

 Compostela-Danao region were solicited by Isaac Conui in 1871. A 

 wagon road was built from Cot-Cot cove to the workings at Dapdap in 

 1877. The formation of the association known as the Sociedad Nuevo 

 Langrea and the beginning of actual work took place about 1890. The 

 construction of a tramroad from Danao to Camansi, and from Compostela 

 to Mount Licos, was undertaken in 1895. Then followed the Spanish- 

 American war in 1898. In this year all the concessions in this district 

 came into the hands of Mr. Enrique Spitz. These concessions have 



Burritt, Chas. H.: Wash. (1901). 



