Page:Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal Vol 7, Part 2.djvu/155

704 to establish saw-mills in the place, to construct wooden boxes of planks, to float the fuel down in them. 17. If wood of superior quality is selected (and there is no want of excellent timber throughout the province), the expense of the sawmills driven by water will be covered by selling the planks at a ipoderate price in Mergui, even with profit. 18 A dep6t should be established at Mergui in a commodious ilace; so that vessels can easily approach the shore. - 19. If large quantities of coal are exported from Mergua, particular coal transportS ought to be constructed, able to contain 5 to 800 tons each. 20. The stratum above the coal is no where more than 25 feet thick, and consists of a, bad slaty coal, 6 inches ; b, grey slate, 8 inches ; c, debris of slate with coarse gravel, 2 feet; 4 gravel, and the rest alluvium. 21. Consequently no complicated mining operation is required. The upper strata being removed, the coal may be extracted without any farther difficulty. •22. Being an open day work no casualties are to be feared from the generation of the fatal bihydroguret of carbon (firedamp). 23. The great expenses accompanying the removal of the accumulated waters in deep coal mines are avoided. 24. Nothing is required but a shed above and a rampart round the coal pits to prevent the intrusion of the rain during the monsoon. 25. In the subsequent calculation it will be seen, that the greatest expense is incurred by the floating down of the rafts; being of the opinion that only Burmese are able to manage the rafts upon the river, the convicts being incumbered with irons and inexperienced on the water. It is the enormous price of labour, ten rupees at least per month, which renders the transport so expensive; suppose the price of labour to be five rupees instead often, then according to the calculation which follows .,—the price would immediately fall from four and a quarter annas pea maund to two and a half annas per macnd. 26. Labourers from India could be advantageously employed in- working this coal field. 27. Being occupied only during the monsoon with the floating down of the coal, they could be employed during the rest of the time, part of them constructing new rafts for the next season, part of them with the cultivation of the paddy, for themselves and for the consumption of the convicts in the coal. 29. The benefits in working the coal mines of these provinces are tqo obvious to merit a particular panegyric; they are in short as follows: