be
supplied, at the present rate of consumption, for several thousand years.
"Adits, miles in length, could be driven within the body of the coal....
These extraordinary conditions ... will eventually give rise to some
curious features in mining... if a railroad should ever be built from the
plain to this region ... branches of it will be constructed within the
body of one or other of these beds of anthracite." Baron Richthofen, in
the paper which we quote from, indicates the revolution in the deposit of
the world's wealth and power, to which such facts, combined with other
characteristics of China, point as probable; a revolution so vast that its
contemplation seems like that of a planetary catastrophe.

In the coal-fields of Hu-nan "the mines are chiefly opened where the
rivers intersect the inclined strata of the coal-measures and allow the
coal-beds to be attacked by the miner immediately at their out-croppings."

At the highest point of the Great Kiang, reached by Sarel and Blakiston,
they found mines on the cliffs over the river, from which the coal was
sent down by long bamboo cables, the loaded baskets drawing up the empty
ones.

[Many coal-fields have been explored since; one of the most important is
the coal-field of the Yun-nan province; the finest deposits are perhaps
those found in the bend of the Kiang; coal is found also at Mong-Tzu,
Lin-ngan, etc.; this rich coal region has been explored in 1898 by the
French engineer A. Leclere. (See _Congres int. Geog._, Paris, 1900, pp.
178-184.)--H. C.]

In various parts of China, as in Che-kiang, Sze-ch'wan, and at Peking,
they form powdered coal, mixed with mud, into bricks, somewhat like our
"patent fuel." This practice is noticed by Ibn Batuta, as well as the use
of coal in making porcelain, though this he seems to have misunderstood.
Rashiduddin also mentions the use of coal in China. It was in use,
according to citations of Pauthier's, before the Christian era. It is a
popular belief in China, that every provincial capital is bound to be
established over a coal-field, so as to have a provision in case of siege.
It is said that during the British siege of Canton mines were opened to
the north of the city.

(_The Distribution of Coal in China_, by Baron Richthofen, in _Ocean
Highways_, N.S., I. 311; _Macgowan_ in _Ch. Repos._ xix. 385-387;
_Blakiston_, 133, 265; _Mid. Kingdom_, I. 73, 78; _Amyot_, xi. 334;
_Cathay_, 261, 478, 482; _Notes by Rev. A. Williamso