3SG Examination and Analysis of four specimens of Coal. [No. 4. 



It is a very fine-looking massive glance-coal, of a brilliant black, 

 and evidently with a fine conchoidal fracture in the larger masses 

 like the jets. The specimens we have are however for the most 

 part very impure, and so mixed with thick veins and masses 

 of the top sandstone, that it is difficult to pick a good piece for 

 analysis or coking, or for taking the Specific Gravity, which I find to 

 be 1.30. 



It is not sectile, but breaks and crumbles under the knife on an 

 edge. Many of the specimens are mixed with a very dark tough 

 shale, which is almost wholly calcareous, though tough enough for a 

 hornblende. 



It flames well, and melts a little ; the smell of the smoke is not 

 pungent but rather disagreeble and sickly. It cokes, like Nos. I. and 

 II. into light crackly and brittle masses, but which are of a brilliant 

 shining black, while these last are comparatively quite dull ; its coke 

 is also, though brittle, not so much so as that Nos. I. and II. 

 I found 100 parts of it to contain 



Water, 10.00 



Gaseous matter, 30.50 



Carbon, 54.75 



Ash of a light red colour, principally Iron, with 



trace of lime and a little silica 4.75 



100.00 



A part of the water in all these specimens is no doubt due to the 

 absorption of atmospheric moisture while pulverising, which cannot 

 be avoided in this hot humid weather ; so that this coal is probably 

 even richer than it is here shewn to be by perhaps 5 per cent, in 

 gaseous matter. 



As it is, however, if there is only a good supply of it, and in a spot 

 where cheap carriage can be procured, it is undoubtedly a most 

 valuable coal, and in every thing, except its coking, equal to the good 

 English or "Welsh coal, and for many purposes the absence of Sul- 

 phur may compensate for the brittleness of its coke. 



