The coal-fields of Hindoostan are small but numerous, being found in all parts of the peninsula.  There is an important coal-field at Raniganj, near the Hooghly, 140 miles north of Calcutta.  It has an area of 500 square miles.  In the Raniganj district there are occasional seams 20 feet to 80 feet in thickness, but the coals are of somewhat inferior quality.

The best quality amongst Indian coals has come from a small coal-field of about 11 square miles in extent, situated at Kurhurbali on the East Indian Railway.  Other coal-fields are found at Jherria and on the Sone River, in Bengal, and at Mopani on the Nerbudda.  Much is expected in future from the large coal-field of the Wardha and Chanda districts, in the Central Provinces, the coal of which may eventually prove to be of Permian age.

The coal-deposits of China are undoubtedly of tremendous extent, although from want of exploration it is difficult to form any satisfactory estimate of them.  Near Pekin there are beds of coal 95 feet thick, which afford ample provision for the needs of the city.  In the mountainous districts of western China the area over which carboniferous strata are exposed has been estimated at 100,000 square miles.  The coal-measures extend westward to the Mongolian frontier, where coal-seams 30 feet thick are known to lie in horizontal plane for 200 miles.  Most of the Chinese coal-deposits are rendered of small value, either owing to the mountainous nature of the valleys in which they outcrop, or to their inaccessibility from the sea.  Japan is not lacking in good supplies of coal.  A colliery is worked by the government on the island of Takasima, near Nagasaki, for the supply of coals for the use of the navy.

The British possession of Labuan, off the island of Borneo, is rich in a coal of tertiary age, remarkable for the quantity of fossil resin which, it contains.  Coal is also found in Sumatra, and in the Malayan Archipelago.

In Cape Colony and Natal the coal-bearing Karoo beds are probably of New Red age.  The coal is reported to be excellent in quantity.

In Abyssinia lignites are frequently met with in the high lands of the interior.

Coal is very extensively developed throughout Australasia.  In New South Wales, coal-measures occur in large detached portions between 29 deg. and 35 deg.  S. latitude.  The Newcastle district, at the mouth of the Hunter river, is the chief seat of the coal trade, and the seams are here found up to 30 feet thick.  Coal-bearing strata are found at Bowen River, in Queensland, covering an area of 24,000 square miles, whilst important mines of Cretaceous age are worked at Ipswich, near Brisbane.  In New Zealand quantities of lignite, described as a hydrous coal, are found and utilised; also an anhydrous coal which may prove to be either of Cretaceous or Jurassic age.

We have thus briefly sketched the supplies of coal, so far as they are known, which are to be found in various countries.  But England has of late years been concerned as to the possible failure of her home supplies in the not very distant future, and the effects which such failure would be likely to produce on the commercial prosperity of the country.