Directors must rest content with developing
their own local trade and pushing forward, by wise and encouraging
regulations, the planting interest, which seems to have already taken
firm root in the country and which will prove to be the foundation of
its future prosperity. Gold and other minerals, including coal, are
known to exist, but the mineralogical exploration of a country covered
with forest and destitute of roads is a work requiring time, and we are
not yet in a position to pronounce on North Borneo's expectations in
regard to its mineral wealth.

The gold on the Segama River, on the East coast, has been several times
reported on, and has been proved to exist in sufficient quantities to,
at any rate, well repay the labours of Chinese gold diggers, but the
district is difficult of access by water, and the Chinese are deferring
operations on a large scale until the Government has constructed a road
into the district. A European Company has obtained mineral concessions
on the river, but has not yet decided on its mode of operation, and
individual European diggers have tried their luck on the fields,
hitherto without meeting with much success, owing to heavy rains,
sickness and the difficulty of getting up stores. The Company will
probably find that Chinese diggers will not only stand the climate
better, but will be more easily governed, be satisfied with smaller
returns, and contribute as much or more than the Europeans to the
Government Treasury, by their consumption of opium, tobacco and other
excisable articles, by fees for gold licenses, and so forth.

Another source of natural wealth lies in the virgin forest with which
the greater portion of the country is clothed, down to the water's edge.
Many of the trees are valuable as timber, especially the _Billian_, or
Borneo iron-wood tree, which is impervious to the attacks of white-ants
ashore and almost equally so to those of the _teredo navalis_ afloat,
and is wonderfully enduring of exposure to the tropical sun and the
tropical downpours of rain. I do not remember having ever come across a
bit of _billian_ that showed signs of decay during a residence of
seventeen years in the East. The wood is very heavy and sinks in water,
so that, in order to be shipped, it has to be floated on rafts of soft
wood, of which there is an abundance of excellent quality, of which one
kind--the red _serayah_--is likely to come into demand by builders in
England. Other of the woods