30 AIOflVEESAEY ADDEESS. 



are common in the shales associated with it. Thus, all the area 

 indicating " Coal" on certain maps recently published must not 

 be supposed to be so full of coal as to justify the search for it in 

 every portion of that area, and other parts may be untinted as 

 coal where coal does exist. But there is, so far as has been 

 proved, coal enough to last for a long period, with proper economy 

 and due attention to the limitation of exports. 



The quantity, for instance, actually produced in 1871, from 

 mines now in operation at or near Newcastle, was 790,113 tons, 

 and of this, 565,429 tons were exported ; and of these exports 

 84,916 tons went to Victoria, 39,705 to New Zealand, 1,694 to 

 Queensland, 29,786 to South Australia, 5,974 to Tasmania, and 

 390 to Western Australia ; the United States took 24,814, China 

 372,800, and India 7,118, &c. The whole was exported to twenty- 

 seven different ports, in nearly 1,000 vessels. 



Smelting operations will increase, and, in places where coal 

 cannot be obtained on or near the spot, the cost of working in 

 tlie interior will be enhanced ; and as steam communication is 

 encouraged from place to place along our leagues and leagues of 

 Australian coast, or to foreign ports, the demand on our coal 

 mines wiU. increase the cost. It would be well, therefore, if steps 

 were taken to ascertain not the possible or probable, but certain, 

 existence of coal in such districts as have never yet been prac- 

 tically sounded. There may be a promising coal area, but the 

 thickness of the seams may be insignificant ; and to point out this 

 was one chief reason that induced me to enter so minutely into 

 the case of America and India, and to quote the words of Mr. 

 Warington Smyth in relation to what he strikingly denominates 

 " the elements for subtraction." 



I have had on my mind another impression to which I must 

 give utterance. There is no doubt that there may be almost in- 

 surmountable difiSculties in obtaining coal for certain localities ; 

 and it is just in such places that all the growing timber has been 

 removed by the axe of the miner, leaving large tracts quite bare 



