These

That the Americans have not yet derived full benefit from their extraordinary coal deposits, may be supposed; but it is not commonly known that, owing to the distance of their great coal fields from the centres of residence and commerce, and the absence of railroads and canals, and all but the most costly means of carriage, together with the situations of some of the coal basins behind mountains, the country has but little beneficial advantage at present in its rich natural possession. Last year the comparatively limited coal fields of Great Britain exported 363,628 tons of coal to North America, of which the United States received at ports of the Atlantic, 284,869 tons. issued chiefly from our northern ports and from Liverpool; the former shipping 115,147 tons. These figures prepare us for the fact that a considerable proportion of the coal consumed in the houses of New York, Boston, and other chief cities of the United States, is British, and that at a cost to the consumer very consolatory to the exporters. We are informed that the English coal going from Liverpool to American factories costs about 27. per ton there. The most luxurious classes demand our Cannel coals (a Lancashire product), which burns with a fine clear flame, whence its name of candle or cannel coal, and this costs, in New York and Boston, nearly 47. per ton. An American invalid assured us, that having to burn a certain proportion of cannel coal, his annual charges for coal, in a moderate-sized house at Boston, amounted to 501; upon removing to reside in a British coal county, he found that he saved nearly 401 a year in coals. The general custom in American cities is to burn

bituminous constituents, and so far coking the coal, which becomes less and less coke-like or anthracitic in proportion as it recedes from the great ridge of contorted rocks, and finally, far away, is found pure bituminous coal, in great natural basins. The great hilly ridge has acted like a lengthened range of fire, partly coking the coal nearest to it, and exciting less and less influence in the ratio of distance. Nor is there any igneous rock near to explain this action upon the acknowledged principle elsewhere observed; and the whole effect is attributed by the professor to volcanic heat, steaming up from old volcanoes, and causing the observed phenomena. From a similar cause, in comparatively recent earthquakes, near the Mississippi, it was found that a long line of the snow, then lying upon the ground, had been melted, while the mass of snow was unaffected.

We believe that we can find an analogous phenomenon (if not due to the same cause) in our own South Welsh Coal Field, where the change from bituminous coal to anthracite seems to have been produced by the intense lateral pressures to which it was subjected when the long ridges dipping in opposite directions, like the roof of a house, and geologically termed anticlinals, which bound and intersect it, were originally formed.

anthracite, which can be delivered at New York at prices varying from 16s. per ton and upwards, in large stoves placed in the cellar, from which regulating pipes convey the heat to different parts of the house. Those who cannot bear this dry, unwholesome heating, burn, in addition, good bituminous coal, probably English, in the open grate, and thus the heat radiating from the open grate, in some degree counteracts the dryness of the stove warmth.

The reports of the results of experiments carried on for Government in relation to supplying coal for the steam navy, greatly favours the South Welsh steam coals. The consequence has been a rapid development of the produce of this coal field, and such an increased interest in its extent and products as will justify a brief notice of both.

The area of the South Wales coal field has been determined, from computations upon the ordnance and other geological maps, to be about 1,055 square miles. It commences on the east in the county of Monmouth, and extends westward through Glamorganshire, Brecknockshire, and Carmarthenshire, to the western boundary of the county of Pembroke. It lies parallel with the Bristol Channel, the numerous harbours of which afford great facilities for exportation, and the railways now constructed in the principality will have the effect of diminishing the expense of carrying the coal from the collieries to the shipping ports and markets for home consumption. The coal is distributed over the included counties, thus:-In Monmouth it is found in the western part of the county, abutting on Glamorganshire in the north-west, and on Brecknockshire in the north. Here its length is about 7 miles, and its breadth 15 miles; the whole area being 110 square miles, and the coal itself bituminous and free burning. It is extensively employed in the smelting and manufacture of iron, at the Tredegar and other large works on the northern boundary, while considerable quantities are shipped at Newport. Four-fifths of the entire county of Glamorgan are covered by coal. This area contains every kind and quality of coal found in South Wales, and embraces an extent of 546 square miles; of which 462 square miles are bituminous and free coal, and 84 miles are anthracitous coal. Out of the above-named amount 26 square miles lie under the sea in Swansea Bay. Large quantities of the bituminous coal are used in copper-smelting, and in the manufacture of tin plates. In Brecknockshire there are only 78 square miles of coal, which are principally situated on the south-west corner, adjoining the counties of Glamorgan and Carmarthen. The whole is called anthracitous. Carmarthenshire possesses 241 square miles of coal, 105 of which run under the sea in Carmarthen Bay. Of this entire district, 117

square miles are styled bituminous, and 124 square miles anthracitous. Both in this and the previous county much of the anthracitous coal is employed in the smelting and manufacture of iron, and a considerable amount is shipped at Llanelly. Passing on, the coal continues westward through the whole length of Pembrokeshire, in a strip which narrows as it proceeds, to St. Bride's Bay, at the extremity of the county; and there it holds on its course along the bay, at right angles to its former direction. Its whole area in this county is but 80 square miles, and the whole is anthracite, of which some is of superior quality. It is preferred to bituminous fuel in the agricultural counties, to which it is exported, and where it is used in stoves, for drying hops and malt and burning lime. Thus, out of this whole field of 1055 square miles, we have 689 square miles of bituminous, and 366 square miles of anthracitous coal, as respects coal superficies or area. When we spoke, some pages back, of prospective impoverishment in the North of England, we alluded to this great store, and here we have the counterbalancing prospective abundance-in quantity -though not in equal quality. The present returns from all the collieries of South Wales under government inspection, give, for 1858, the amount of 7,495,289 tons, not quite half the produce of Durham and Northumberland for the same year. But our chief interest, at present, is in the steam coal of South Wales. Highly bituminous coal not only produces a small percentage of coke, on account of the large proportion of volatile matter which it contains, but its quality is much inferior to that produced from kinds less bituminous. Being, also, specifically light and spongy, and much honeycombed, it is soft, easily crumbles, and therefore greatly wastes. The coal named semi-bituminous, however, is very valuable, and is suitable for almost every purpose except making gas. Sufficiently bituminous to be easily kindled, it makes a bright, cheering fire, and gives out great heat with very little smoke. It is also important to notice that its smoke, instead of being black and dense in large volumes, as in the highly bituminous coal, is inconsiderable in quantity, brown in colour, and productive of little soot. The anthracite of South Wales burns without emitting flame or smoke, does not bind' or cake, or soil when handled, and has a general metallic lustre. Its ash is of a light pink and sometimes of a dark grey colour. Properly speaking, it does not form a coke in the usual acceptation of that term; for the water and hydrogen are expelled in small quantities during the distillation, and a slight diminution of bulk takes place, yet no new arrangement, as is usual in the transition of coal into coke, is formed; the fracture remains the

same, and there is not that cellular structure which

may observe in common coke.

every one

The employment of anthracite in our steam ships is a subject of great importance; and if it should be found that it can be successfully adopted, part of the space now occupied by the stowage of coal might be saved and appropriated to an increased cargo, as anthracite, bulk for bulk, is of the greatest density of any coal. Taking into account the greater specific gravity of anthracite, a saving of one third of the space now occupied by coal might be saved; and it has been proved that 100 tons of anthracite will do the duty of 144 tons of bituminous coal. It is probable that by the use of the best and best-picked anthracite, the necessity for calling during long voyages at coaling stations might be in a great measure avoided; and in the event of a naval war, such provision for fuel might be made as to give a decided superiority to the steam-ships so furnished. At present, during the year 1858, the anthracite district of South Wales yielded 737,590 tons. Anthracite might, we believe, be rendered serviceable for locomotive engines by admixture with other coals, but its decrepitation, or flying to pieces when heated, will, we fear, prevent its exclusive adoption in this way. It was, indeed, tried in the engines on the Liverpool and Manchester Railway about 1839, but the draught up the chimney was so strong that the coal was projected into the air in fine powder, and the carriages were covered with it.

The American Government have been more alive to the importance of possessing proper surveys of their anthracitic deposits than our own. Professor Rogers was particularly instructed to accomplish this task with especial relation to commerce, and one of the tables in his book shows the developement of the Pennsylvanian anthracite mines from the commencement, in 1820, through all the stages of growth. In 38 years the trade advanced at the rate of 184,000 tons per annum, and from 1839 to 1849, the produce doubled itself in each five years, while it has again doubled itself in eight years, so as to attain in 1857 the aggregate of 6,431,378 tons of hard anthracite. Vast as our British coal trade is, it has only doubled itself in about twenty-four years. Anthracite is extensively used in the States as a manufacturing coal. For iron-smelting and iron-melting in the foundry, it has been employed during the last dozen years, and the iron works have been carefully adapted to its use. We learn, also, that it is in extensive employment as a steam coal in the steam boats of the American rivers, and in the American lines of Atlantic steamers, as well

as in the steam navy of the States. In fact, this kind of coal is now generally employed in the United States for most purposes for which a mineral fuel is required.

If we examine the little that has been reported respecting the coal fields of France, Belgium, Germany, and Russia, we do not learn that as yet any considerable amount of good anthracite or steam coal has been discovered in those great countries. The mean annual produce of coal in France, deduced from returns for five years, is only 5,490,702 English tons (of 2,240 lbs.); that is, about the thirteenth part of British produce at present. In five years France has not extracted the half of our last year's amount, and in five years she has produced of anthracite only 3,597,220 tons. It is doubtful whether her anthracite forms a good steam coal, while the experiments on fuel which have been made in the French Navy have demonstrated the superiority of British coal over the produce of the coal fields of France. An attempt has obviously been made to provide against the evil day by accumulating large stores of British coal in the French ports. Last year we exported to France 1,344,342 tons of coal, of which 354,364 tons issued from ports on the Severn, and the remainder from Northern ports. But the effect of a prohibition of the export of coal during hostilities would be speedily to exhaust the stores of this essential combustible, and not only to embarrass the operations of foreign navies, but to interrupt to a very great extent the manufacturing power and the supply of coal gas on the continent.

In conclusion we must remark that in the official and concerted survey of their mineral fuels the Americans have surpassed us. When we look at such a work as this of Professor Rogers, laborious in statistics, accurate in surveys, and magnificent in form and embellishments; when we bear in mind that this is merely the survey of one State and mainly the results of one man's personal labours and studies; we may well turn and inquire of our own scientific authorities what we possess of a similar character? The answer must be humiliating: we have simply nothing worth a moment's comparison. We are the first coal-mining and coal-producing country in the world. If we assume the entire annual coal produce of the chief coal fields in the world to be 100,000,000 tons, we ourselves contribute more than three-fifths of that quantity, and the estimated money value of our annual coal produce amounts to the amazing sum of sixteen millions and a quarter. We have deposits of the most varied character and the most valuable qualities; we have a very far larger amount of capital invested in coal mining than any other nation; we employ above two