420 On the Tenasserim Coal Field. 



nity. The pumps were worked by hand-labour. In December last a 

 marine engine of 10-horse-power was received for this purpose, 

 which was put together on the spot, and enabled the work to proceed. 

 The pumps were then connected with the engine, making 40 revolu- 

 tions per minute, a speed which, owing to the smallness of the 

 diameter and lift it was necessary to maintain, but which is totally 

 unadapted to mining operations. No pipes were received with the 

 pumps, but hollow bamboos were substituted, and the means supplied 

 were in my opinion quite inadequate for working a mine of any ex- 

 tent, or to the expectation, except under the most favourable circum- 

 stances of a profitable return for money expended. The angle of 

 dip at which the work has been carried on is one of great practical 

 inconvenience, and I have much doubt whether, even with complete 

 machinery, coal could have been obtained from this mine, excepting for 

 a very short period, so as to be shipped at Mergui at a rate at all 

 approaching to the average price of coal in India. Much however 

 has been done by the exertions of Lieutenant Hutchinson. About 

 one thousand tons of coal have been got out during the twenty months 

 since ground was broken, and the skill and ingenuity shewn in the 

 management of the very imperfect means placed at his disposal, 

 are highly creditable to that officer. 



8. The operations should not, in my opinion, be considered as those 

 of a coal mine, but as an experimental working, and when the large 

 sums of money expended at the commencement of undertakings of 

 this nature in other countries before coal is reached are also consider- 

 ed, I shall, I trust, be able to make it appear that the prospects from 

 this coal field are not discouraging. 



9. Nothing satisfactory appears in the nature of this coal deposit, 

 to enable me to refer it to the true coal measures of the carboniferous 

 system. There is no trace of limestone of any description, or of 

 red sandstone, either old or new, within the distance of several miles, 

 to which observations of the structure of the country have been made. 

 The surface of the hills on either side of the basin, and for a consider- 

 able space towards the centre, is covered by an overlying claystone 

 porphyry, which bears no relation to a deposit of coal. This is thick- 

 ly penetrated by veins of quartz, and the hills on the West, judging 

 by the large masses of quartz with which the ravines abound, consist 

 principally of that rock, while the streams on the East containing tin 



