Tax Baron yon Richthofen's paper at the British Association has, apparently, been made the occasion of a display of incredulity by a section of people who ought to have been bette? informed as to the fusts put for ward. Traveller's tales have before this earned the reputation of being things to be lightly believed; but such at the present day is the certainty of exposure, and so swift the Nemesis sure to follow, that explorers are fearful rather.-of being thought to exaggerate: reverse. A-good portion of the audience seemed to be content with the, simple assertion that, as a naval officer had not found good coal east of the Cape, the coalfields of China were little better than a myth; while another section of the public, rather too credulous, is not only willing to listen to any reports of the mineral wealth of China, but is quite prepared to people the empire with 'a race capable of making full industrial use of it. Between these two the Baron has apparently taken his stand, and communicates to Ocean Highways an instructive paper, which however, to residents in China, is mere* ly @ recapitulation of his former reports.
Without committing ourselves altogether to Baron von Richthofen's geological theories, we are cor-tainly in a position to back up his observations, and add our testimony as to the trath of his facts. It is apparently the old story of the traveller at the Court of Siam,—his tales of strange birds, beasts.and fish met with ready acceptance; but when he came to tell of water frozen so hard that it required violence to break it, his auditors knew far better than he the utter impracticability of such a phenomenon. The statements made by Baron von Richthofen as to the -enormous expanse and ready accessibility of the coalfields of Shansi, are in themselves sufficiently startling; yet there is no reason to doubt, judging by what we know of his explorations elsewhere, of their substantial correctness. That a coal bed should run horizontally, and with little change for thirty miles, is a fact in geology not noted elsewhere and, like the ice with the King of Siam, is at once received with incredulity. But other geological formations do in other parts of the world, notoriously the Permian strata in Russia, extend uniformly over as great or greater areas, so that after all it is only the accident that the for-motion is coal-bearing, that stands in the way of ready belief. Yet, if we are to believe the reports of the most recent explorers we are only just now beginning to be alive to the extent of the coal-bearing beds of the world. China is in all probability only the fringe to similar deposits in Central Asia; and the Chinese beds seem, so far as they have been investigated, to eclipse all the other coalfields of the world put together.
According to old tradition, learn. ing originated in the East and spre its benign influence over the West and though the tradition was only partially true, and we in China have got to a point whither much of what learning exists emigrated from a westerly point, the prospect seems to denote that, at no very distant era, the industrial arts must take a metro. gressive step towards the coasts of the Pacific. We do not mean to hint that the semi-civilised nations of eastern Asia are likely to take any more active step than they have hitherto done in the Jong line of human progress; but human progress has been essentially athing of fits and starts. Whocan tell whence originated the ancient civilisation of Egypt? What causes led to the first developement of the Greek and Roman civilisations? Even in modern time, where did the wonderful awakening which followed the dark ages have its spring? The energy then devo-loped has peopled half the Globe with Teutonic settlers, mostly of the English tribe; it has developed the sea into a highway, and removed the barriers of mountain and river. Their. settle. ments already spread in every direction along the coast of the Pacific. Ib would be presumption at present to hint that their energy is on the wane; certainly no other race seems to have shown any symptom of stepping into their place. The world has hitherto. offered no example of a decayed race springing a second time into life and vigour; the inhabitants of eastern Asia, have certainly fallen from the standard of energy once attained, and it is fanciful to look to the followers of Buddha or Confucius for the regeneration of the world.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.