Page:The journal of the Royal Geographic Society of London. Volume 34, 1864. (IA s572id13663720).pdf/214

12 coral that occur in the harbour. In South China they are obliged to have recourse to oyster-shells.

The coal-beds that crop out on the hills facing the sea, near Kelung, and are there worked by the Chinese, are about 16 square miles in extent, and crop out again in the neighbourhood of the north branch of the Tamsuy River, whence this mineral is also procured and brought down to our harbour for sale. I visited the Kelung mines in 1857, and included the following notice of them in my report to the Shanghai Society, above referred to:—

“It is a long pull from Kelung Harbour westward, round to what is called Coal Harbour, where these mines are situated. These mines are worked by Chinese, who live at their entrance, in huts built of straw and wood. There are eleven or twelve excavations; the mouths opening out, at different heights, on the side of a hill facing the sea. I went to the end of one, guided by a man bearing a lighted piece of twisted paper. The excavation, which ran in a horizontal direction, varied from about four-and-a-half to three feet in height, and three to ten or more in breadth. The strata of coal run along on both sides in parallel lines, from one to three feet in thickness. The roof and floor were composed of sandstone. Water was constantly dropping from the roof, and, mixing with the sand, formed a slimy mud. The hole ran in pretty nearly a straight line for 240 paces: at the end it took a sudden turn to the right. Small wicks in saucers of oil, placed in side niches, lighted up the gallery; and in the cul-de-sac we found five or six men at work in a state of nudity, with pickaxes, blunt at one end, and sharp at the other. The coal thus obtained is very small and bituminous, and burns fast, but with great heat and flame. It is very certain they get the best there is in that locality. They asked 20 cents a picul (10d. per 133 lbs.) for it at the pit’s mouth, and declared that five men at work in a mine for twenty-four hours did not procure more than 30 piculs. They bring out the coal as fast as it is dug, in oblong baskets, containing a picul each, dragging the baskets over the mud on boards.”

Unfortunately, as might be expected from its occurrence in tertiary deposits, the coal turns out to be a lignite, and therefore can never compete with good English coal in the Hong-Kong market. In Commodore Perry’s ‘Expedition to Japan,’ vol. ii. pp. 168-70, a comparison is instituted between the Formosan coal, two sorts from Japan, and Cumberland coal, and a decided preference then given, from chemical analysis, to the Formosan over the Japanese. In some respects it is shown to have an advantage over the Cumberland produce, and hints are thrown out as to the probability of a better material being procured if the veins were struck lower. But the fact of its being tertiary coal is quite against this.