Dire transformation of parts of Northern China into a country like the coal producing districts of England commenced on the day when the Kaiping Colliery began to work. he change must proceed, if slowly, still with a steady and certain progress, and the result must be much the same in Eng-Jand and in Chi The development of the North-China Collieries will lead to great activity in trade. The col-lienes will increase in numbers and in their out-put of coal. When the second great colliery has been fairly set at work, as will be the case in a short time, a third will naturally follow and then a fourth. So the great series will proceed. 'I'he arithmetical progress sion of increase in trade will become geometrical, and the advance will not be checked by limitation in the size of the coal fields or in the number of obtainable labourers. Such a check is not conceivable at present on account of the enormous extent of the vegetable deposits which long ayes ayo were pressed by superincumbent weight into mineral coal, and further because there is in North-China an endless supply of labourers whose habits and capacity adapt them for the English forms of industry.
On the hill where the Kaiping Colbery has been dug is a large quarry, in one part of which are seen a few square feet of black clay. This is an indication of coal beneath, it being the cropping out of a seam. Beneath it is slack coal. Underneath this again is common coal and still lower down is good coal. It may be understood from this arrangement of soft substances above and hard below, that in the extensive horizontal coal field to which Kaiping belongs, the vertical pressure of the overlying deposits increasing with the depth, is the chief reason of the difference between black clay, slack coal and good bituminous coal. In this part of the Peking plain the problem of the coal strata is very much simplified by the fact of their horizontal deposition, and wherever the black clay is found coal is not likely to' a month, and they perform all the pro-far off. Native proprietors of Jand cesses common in iron foundries at. over many hundred square miles in the! home. When the Lin-hsi colliery is in Chihli plain, and in the adjacent moun- full work this will be doubled. The tains, will some day become aware of the gradual increase in the distribution of hidden riches lying under their own soil, money among the people will enhance andmaybecome the envied of their neigh-their comfort, and they are now getting hours for their riches possible or actual. coal to burn in the long winter at a far Inevery such case it will not only be the cheaper rate than their forefathers ever landlord that will reap advantage. All knew. This great industry is crowing the neighbouring villages will share not slowly and the people of the North-the plenty which the discovery of coal em provinces will gradually be compe will produce. At the Kaiping colliery led to admit that as a consequence eighty Ibs. of common coal are sold for the new colliery system, no small addi-130 cash. That is to say 800 Ibs. are tion is being made to their wealth and sold for a tael of silver, an enormous domestic happiness. Of course a de-boon to the surrounding country. The mand has to be created for the sale increases rapidly; the villages are! coal and other productions of Kaiping. very numerous in all fertile tracts of Though the coal is excellent for use on the plain, and it is in the fertile tracts steamers a large demand can only be that coal is likely to be found, because originated gradually. So with the jars the clays, the asbestos, and the useful and other industrial products of the earths which abound near coal seams same region, Asbestos is becoming. have already given origin to industries inch more used than ever before. It which have attracted population. It; will be found therefore that populous invaluable for employment in rendering buildings fire-proof; worked up in tracts of country will become amore paint it is now found to be very effective populous in proportion as mineral riches in_ stopping fires, A coat of asbestos are developed. and old industries already paint acts like a charm to check a con-existing in such neighbourhoods will be flagati But asbestos is abundant in greatly expauled. For instance, K and from the St. Lawrence it ping had at or near it before the first finds its way to England at too cheap colliery was opened, industries connected atate to allow the slightest hope that with coal, asbestos and earthenware Chinese asbestos can become a profitable clays. It was Dr. Williamson who in export from China to Europe, The 1868 drew attention for the first time asbestos of North-China may however to the working of coal at Kaipi gradually be exported to Japan where when at last it was re: fires are constantly occurring, and to a large colliery on principles other Asiatic countries where cheap the presence in the in market of earthenware stoves are in demand, A Kaiping coal brought by canal to that large demand for this and other produecity from Kaiping had also a share in' tions of the Kaiping region can only leading to the selection of this locality be expected to arrive by slow degrees. as the starting point for the introduetion into North-CI ina of the British colliery system. The output at pre-
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.