Part 8 (1/2)

Ast the actual coal-fields, that of Pennsylvania stands pre-eminent The anthracite here is in inexhaustible quantity, its output exceeding that of the ordinary bitureat field of which this is a portion, extends in an unbroken length for 875 miles NE and SW, and includes the basins of Ohio, Maryland, Virginia, Kentucky, and Tennessee The workable seaate from 70 to 207 feet Some of the lower seah Suood coal

A re its name This is 8 feet thick at its outcrop near the town, and although its thickness varies considerably, Professor Rogers estimates that the sheet of coal measures superficially about 14,000 square miles What a forest there must have existed to produce so widespread a bed! Even as it is, it has at a forreat denudation, if certain detached basins should be considered as indicating its former extent

The principal seam in the anthracite district of central Pennsylvania, which extends for about 650the left bank of the Susquehanna, is known as the ”Mammoth” vein, and is 29-1/2 feet thick at Wilkesbarre, whilst at other places it attains to, and even exceeds, 60 feet

On the west of the chain of entler, and the coal assuh Ohio we find a saddle-back ridge or anticline of more ancient strata than the coal, and in consequence of this, we have a physical boundary placed upon the coal-fields on each side

Passing across this older ridge of denuded Silurian and other rocks, we reach the famous Illinois and Indiana coal-field, whose coal-h, bounded on the west by the uprising of the carboniferous limestone of the upper Mississippi This li been absent on the eastern side of the Ohio anticline The area of the coal-field is estimated at 51,000 square miles

In connection with the coal-fields of the United States, it is interesting to notice that a wide area in Texas, estie ae Another iinia contains coal referable to the Jurassic age, and is similar in fossil contents to the Jurassic of Whitby and Brora The inia boasts a thickness of fronites of Cretaceous age are found on the Pacific slope, to which age those of Vancouver's Island and Saskatchewan River are referable

Other coal-fields of less importance are found between Lakes Huron and Erie, where the measures cover an area of 5000 square miles, and also in Rhode Island

In British North America we find extensive deposits of valuable coal-e developments occur in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia

At South Joggins there is a thickness of 14,750 feet of strata, in which are found seventy-six coal-seams of 45 feet in total thickness At Picton there are six seams with a total of 80 feet of coal In the lower carboniferous group is found the peculiar asphaltic coal of the Albert nite are met with both in the Dominion and in the United States, whilst true coal-measures flank both sides of the Rocky Mountains Coal-seao

The principal areas of deposit in South Aest is the Candiota coal-field, in Brazil, where sections in the valley of the Candiota River show five good seams with a total of 65 feet of coal It is, however, worked but little, the principal workings being at San Jeronimo on the Jacahahay River

In Peru the true carboniferous coal-searound of the Andes, whilst coal of secondary age is found in considerable quantities on the rise towards the mountains At Porton, east of Truxillo, the sae of sandstone to a hard quartzite has also changed the ordinary bituminous coal into an anthracite, which is here vertical in position The coals of Peru usually rise to more than 10,000 feet above the sea, and they are practically inaccessible

Cretaceous coals have been found at Lota in Chili, and at Sandy Point, Straits of Magellan

Turning to Asia, we find that coal has been worked fronites are met with at Smyrna and Lebanon

The coal-fields of Hindoostan are s found in all parts of the peninsula There is an ihly, 140 miles north of Calcutta It has an area of 500 square anj district there are occasional seams 20 feet to 80 feet in thickness, but the coals are of sost Indian coals has come from a small coal-field of about 11 square miles in extent, situated at Kurhurbali on the East Indian Railway Other coal-fields are found at Jherria and on the Sone River, in Bengal, and at Mopani on the Nerbudda Much is expected in future froe coal-field of the Wardha and Chanda districts, in the Central Provinces, the coal of which e

The coal-deposits of China are undoubtedly of treh from want of exploration it is difficult to form any satisfactory estimate of them Near Pekin there are beds of coal 95 feet thick, which afford ample provision for the needs of the city In the mountainous districts of western China the area over which carboniferous strata are exposed has been estimated at 100,000 square olian frontier, where coal-seams 30 feet thick are known to lie in horizontal plane for 200 miles Most of the Chinese coal-deposits are rendered of s to the mountainous nature of the valleys in which they outcrop, or to their inaccessibility froood supplies of coal A colliery is worked by the governasaki, for the supply of coals for the use of the navy

The British possession of Labuan, off the island of Borneo, is rich in a coal of tertiary age, remarkable for the quantity of fossil resin which, it contains Coal is also found in Suo

In Cape Colony and Natal the coal-bearing Karoo beds are probably of New Red age The coal is reported to be excellent in quantity

In Abyssinia lignites are frequently h lands of the interior

Coal is very extensively developed throughout Australasia In New South Wales, coal-e detached portions between 29 and 35 S latitude The Newcastle district, at the mouth of the Hunter river, is the chief seat of the coal trade, and the sea strata are found at Bowen River, in Queensland, covering an area of 24,000 square e are worked at Ipswich, near Brisbane In New Zealand quantities of lignite, described as a hydrous coal, are found and utilised; also an anhydrous coal which e

We have thus briefly sketched the supplies of coal, so far as they are knohich are to be found in various countries But England has of late years been concerned as to the possible failure of her home supplies in the not very distant future, and the effects which such failure would be likely to produce on the commercial prosperity of the country

Great Britain has long been the centre of the universe in the supply of the world's coal, and as aconsiderably hout the whole world There is, as we have seen, an abundance of coal elsewhere, which will, in the course of time, compete with her when properly worked, but Britain seems to have early taken the lead in the production of coal, and to have becoivings as to ill happen when her coal is exhausted, receive little comfort from the fact that in North America, in Prussia, in China and elsewhere, there are treh a certain sense of relief is experienced when that fact becoenerally known