obtained by them. The annual
contribution by Sarawak is about $16,000, and by the British North
Borneo $11,800. These sums are apportioned amongst the Sultan and nobles
who had interests in the ceded districts. I may say here that the
payment by British North Borneo to the Sultan of the State, under the
arrangement made by Mr. DENT already referred to, is one of $5,000 per
annum.

An annual payment is also made by Mr. W. C. COWIE for the sole right[6]
of working coal in the Sultanate, which he holds for a period of several
years. Coal occurs throughout the island of Borneo, and its existence
has long been known. It is worked on a small scale in Sarawak and in
some portions of Dutch Borneo, and the unsuccessful attempts to develope
the coal resources of the Colony of Labuan will be referred to later on.

In the Brunai Sultanate, with which we are at present concerned, coal
occurs abundantly in the Brunai river and elsewhere, but it is only at
present worked by Mr. COWIE and his partners at Muara, at the mouth of
the Brunai river--Muara, indeed, signifying in Malay a river's mouth.
The Revd. J. E. TENNISON-WOOD, well known in Australia as an authority
on geological questions, thus describes the Muara coalfields:--"About
twenty miles to the South-west of Labuan is the mouth of the Brunai
river. Here the rocks are of quite a different character, and much
older. There are sandstones, shales, and grits, with ferruginous joints.
The beds are inclined at angles of 25 to 45 degrees. They are often
altered into a kind of chert. At Muara there is an outcrop of coal seams
twenty, twenty-five and twenty-six feet thick. The coal is of excellent
quality, quite bitumenised, and not brittle. The beds are being worked
by private enterprise. I saw no fossils, but the beds and the coal
reminded me much of the older Australian coals along the Hunter river.
The mines are of great value. They are rented for a few thousand dollars
by two enterprising Scotchmen, from the Sultan of Brunai. The same
sovereign would part with the place altogether for little or nothing.
Why not have our coaling station there? Or what if Germany, France or
Russia should purchase the same from the independent Sultan of Brunai?"
As if to give point to the concluding remarks, a Russian man-of-war
visited Muara and Brunai early in 1887, and shewed considerable interest
in the coal mines.[7]

Footnotes:

[Footnote 4: He has since been "protected"--see ante page 6,