Note 3 — XXIII
Reading edition
According to the Mineral Review, Madrid, 1866, xvii. 244, the coal from the mountain of Alpacó, in the district of Naga, in Cebu, is dry, pure, almost free of sulphur pyrites, burns easily, and with a strong flame. In the experiments made at the laboratory of the School of Mines in Madrid it yielded four per cent. of ashes, and a heating power of 4,825 caloria; i.e., by the burning of one part by weight 4,825 parts by weight of water were heated to 1° C. Good pit-coal gives 6,000 cal. The first coal pits in Cebu were excavated in the Massanga valley; but the works were discontinued in 1859, after considerable outlay had been made on them. Four strata of considerable thickness were subsequently discovered in the valley of Alpacó and in the mountain of Oling, in Naga. * * “The coal of Cebu is acknowledged to be better than that of Australia and Labuan, but has not sufficient heating power to be used, unmixed with other coal, on long sea voyages.”
According to the Catalogue of the Products of the Philippines (Manila, 1866), the coal strata of Cebu have, at many places in the mountain range which runs from north to south across the whole of the island, an average thickness of two miles. The coal is of middling quality, and is burnt in the Government steam works after being mixed with Cardiff coal. The price in Cebu is on the average six dollars per ton.