[211] According to the Mineral Review, Madrid, 1866, xvii. 244, the coal from the mountain of Alpaco, 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 deg.  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 Alpaco 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.

[212] English Consular Report, 217.

[213] The man credited with the development of the sugar industry through machinery.  A monument has been erected to his memory.—­T.

[214] In Jaro the leases have increased threefold in six years:  and cattle which were worth $10 in 1860, fetched $25 in 1866.  Plots of land on the “Ria,” in Iloilo, have risen from $100 to $500, and even as high as $800. (Diario, February 1867).  These results are to be ascribed to the sugar trade, which, through free exportation, has become extremely lucrative.

[215] In 1855 Iloilo took altogether from Negros 3,000 piculs out of 11,700; in 1860 as much as 90,000 piculs; in 1863, 176,000 piculs (in twenty-seven foreign ships); in 1866, 250,000 piculs; in 1871, 312,379 picula from both islands.

[216] The sugar intended for the English market cost in Manila, in the years 1868 and 1869, from L15 to L16 per ton, and fetched in London about L20 per ton.  The best refined sugar prepared in Manila for Australia was, on account of the higher duty, worth only L3 per ton more in London; but, being L5 dearer than the inferior quality, it commanded a premium of L2.  Manila exports the sugar chiefly from Pangasinan, Pampanga, and Laguna.—­(From private information.)

[217] The Islands of the East Indian Archipelago, 1868, p. 340.

[218] Exhibition Catalogue; section, French Colonies, 1867, p. 80.

[219] Report of the Commissioners, Exhibition 1867, iv. 102.  The South American Indians have for a long time past employed the banana fiber in the manufacture of clothing material;—­(The Technologist, September, 1865, p. 89, from unauthenticated sources,) and in Loo Choo the banana fiber is the only kind in use (Faits Commerciaux, No. 1514. p. 36).