III.—On the Coal-bearing Rocks of Southern Chile

Extract

Little as the Geology of South America has been worked, yet the presence of coal along the coast of Chile has long been known to navigators and others. Of late years this coal has been worked in sundry places—in short, wherever the circumstances seemed most favourable. The strata in which the seams occur, were made the subject of considerable study from a palæontological point of view by D'Orbigny and by Darwin; but not until the last ten or fifteen years have the resources of the country, with regard to this branch of industry, been examined into sufficiently to enable a correct estimate to be made of them. The surveys, which have been the direct result of the interest awakened by the knowledge of the presence of workable seams of lignite in Chile, have been greatly conducive to a more perfect knowledge of the geological structure of the coast; and the consequent accumulation of material for its study has, we believe, brought it within our power, not only to add to the very limited stock of notes on the subject, but also, it is hoped, to give such explanations of some of the more obscure facts connected therewith as were, from the want of reliable data, either overlooked by earlier observers, or only vaguely suggested by them.