152 
MISCELLANEOUS NOTICES <£c. 
void of that brilliancy which all the other varieties posses in a great¬ 
er or less degree, and which particularly distinguishes the Labuan 
coal;* in other directions it is of a dull velvet black hue. One 
of its marked peculiarities is its compactness, firmness, and fine, close, 
fibrous structure which exactly resembles that of a piece of fine 
grained wood. The fibres in some places are concentrically curved. 
The fracture in some directions bears a perfect resemblance to that 
of black sealing wax. In others it is like ebony. In cleavage faces 
it has a beautiful polish. It burns with a large bright flame, at first 
with decrepitation, and throughout with brilliant jets, and intume¬ 
scence, caking very much. A scoria with metallic lustre remains. 
This when broken is seen to be finely vesicular, and possessing a 
bright glistening pitchy lustre. The fragments from the centre when 
again heated give a little white flame with an occasional slight jet. 
Volatile matter, ...... 48. 748. 
Charcoal, .. 52. 071. 
Ash,... 1. 183. 
Sp. gr. 1. 245. 
When we cursorily examined this coal previous lo sending it to Pro¬ 
fessor Ansted, it seemed externally to be intermediate between lignite 
and cannel coal, (which graduate into each other, so that, in some 
systems of mineralogy, lignite is merely mentioned as a variety 
of cannel coal) but much nearer to the former. On re-examination 
and comparison with several varieties of coal, we observe that, while 
it differs very markedly from all these, its fracture presents the 
very same appearances which we find on breaking a small spe¬ 
cimen of jet. Under the microscope this resemblance in structure, 
colour and lustre is preserved. The Junkceylon, or rather Ligor, 
coal, however, is much more highly bituminized, as the lignite burns 
with a smaller quantity of flame and without jets. 
In nature the different kinds of coal pass into each other by 
many gradations. Several are often found in the same bed; and 
even those which mineralogically bear the same name, frequent¬ 
ly, in specimens from different localities and even from the same lo¬ 
cality, exhibit a want of agreement in the proportions of their ingre¬ 
dients. Thus different specimens of cannel coal which have been ex- 
* 
* +3ee p. '?9 ante* 
