THE COAL-FIELDS OF CHINA.

Globe, Volume IX, Issue 1363, 27 June 1878, Page 3

THE COAL-FIELDS OF CHINA.

In a contribution to the Austrian “ Monatschrift f. d. Orient,” Baron von Richthofen reckons the coal production of China at 3.000. tons annually. The anthracite beds of Shansi represent 1,000,000 tons, the bituminous coal of that province 700,000, the province of Hunan, 000,000, Shantung, 200.000, and Chi-li, 150,000,. Eiact statistics would evidently infcreasy the total quantity. Alf the eighteen provinces contain coal; and, although the extent of the coal-fields and the ago and quality of the coal vary, yet China may now be regarded as one of the first coal countries of the world. Evidently the area of the coal-fields of China exceeds the wonderful extent of those of North America, and with the greatest of them —that of Shansi—no other coal region can be compared in the union of the most fortunate conditions as regards position, quality, and quantity, all the more that, along with the coal, brown iron ore is found in great quantity. With a yearly output of 300,000,000 tone could this extensive bed of anthracite alone cover the whole present demand of the world for 2 100 years. But the working of the Chinese coal-fields is yet so much in its infancy that the output at present, in spite of the most favorable circumstances, is only equal to abopi l-iuih of the coal production pf Germany or the L'nited St at eg. ’tciehthofon —and no one has a better right to pronounce an opinion—does not, however, doubt (hat in the near future it will rise into importance, and since nowhere such cheap fuel is combined with so inexhaustible a supply of cheap and, at the, same time iufclligent and effective labor as ip China, should the only desire it, centres of production of the first rank must in a short time rise in the neighborhood of the coal-fields.