Red hematite is found in Cebú, brown hematite in Paracale and other parts of Camarines Norte, and both red and brown in Capiz. In Misamis oxydized iron is found. Some of the iron about San Miguel de Mayumo is magnetic.
I do not believe that at present, and for many years to come, it is possible to work these ores and make iron and steel to compete with American or British imported iron.
But the time may come when, under different conditions, these remarkable ores may be turned to account; in fact, it is asserted a scarcity of high class iron ore will soon occur, in which case the Philippine ores of such extraordinary richness will come into use.
Coal.
It is common to see coal mentioned amongst the mineral resources of the Philippines, but so far as I have been able to learn, no true coal has been found there, nor in any of the adjacent islands. There are beds of lignite of varying quality, and when enthusiastic finders are told of the poor quality of their samples, they reply at once, “It will be better at depth.”
The Philippine formations seem to greatly resemble those of Borneo, and there it was found that the lignite got poorer at depth, so that mines were abandoned from this cause alone.
The Philippine beds of lignite have been violently upheaved by the cataclysms of former ages, and are often turned up vertically, as at the mines of Sugud in Albay. I was consulted about these mines after a considerable sum had been thrown away. The Spanish engineer employed commenced by building himself a commodious house; he then laid a tramway from the port to where the mine was to be, and bought a winding engine. The available capital was expended, and nothing more was done.
The position of the seams at Sugud very much resembles the occurrence of the seams at the Pengaron mine in Borneo, which stopped work 18th October, 1884, after a precarious existence of thirty-six years, on account of the poor quality of the coal and the relatively high cost of extraction. This is on the authority of Dr. Theodor Posewitz in ‘Borneo: its Geology and Mineral Resources,’ 1892, and what follows so exactly applies to all the so-called coal in the Philippines, that I shall quote the paragraph:—
P. 480.—“A number of analyses were carried out, and practical tests were applied on board various ships. The result was always ore or less favourable, yet nobody would have the coal.”