Proceedings of the Philosophical Society of Glasgow Vol.5, (1863) pp.199, 246-254.1 APRIL 22 1863: MR.

JAMES RUSSELL2 read a paper on the Tertiary coal of Borneo, Sarawak, illustrated by maps, sections, and specimens of minerals and fossils.
ND

On the Tertiary coal of Borneo, Sarawak. With a Section. By MR. JAMES RUSSELL, Mineral Surveyor.
IN August, 1856, I entered into an engagement with that honourable and enterprising Company, the Borneo3 (Limited), to serve them as exploring mining-engineer in the sovereignty of Sarawak, island of Borneo. They had leased the coal and other minerals from that great and good man, Sir James Brooke, Rajah of Sarawak, who had been in possession of it some twenty years previous to my engagement. The coal was already being worked. The sago trade and other branches of commerce had been opened up long before I went out, by the enterprising director of the Company, Mr. Harvey4, of Messrs. Morgan & McEwen of this city, and then resident at Singapore. At the time of my arrival at Sarawak 5 there were resident there thirty-four European adults nine of whom were females, and thirteen belonged to the Rajah's government. He had no standing army, and ruled about 30,000 Chinese, about 40,000 Malays, and about 85,000 Dyaks, in all, about 155,000 subjects, inhabiting about 12,000 square miles of territory. The Bishop of Labuan 6 had a mission station in connection with the Church of England, whose staff consisted of himself and lady, three missionaries, a schoolmaster and schoolmistress, and another female, who looked after the cooking, washing, mending, and other comforts of the children attending school. The Company had an agent, Mr. Helms7, at Sarawak, manufacturing sago, buying antimony, bees'-wax, gutta percha, and other native products of commerce, from the Chinese, Malays, and Dyaks. Mr. Coulson8 and two assistants were opening up a coal mine at Simunjen, and preparing to make three miles of a railway from the mine to the junction of the river Simunjen with the Sadong, where ships could be loaded. There was another European gentleman, Mr. Rupell9, a merchant, said to be in company with some of the Chinese. The country of Sarawak is flat and swampy near the coast and borders of the rivers; and where the schist forms the surface there are little undulating hills of porphyry, and occasional isolated hills, with water and swampy jungle surrounding them. Various species of palms and other trees abound, which, together with the green underwood, give the country a beautiful and picturesque appearance.

The section produced is intended to show the different geological deposits, and their positions relative to each other, with the injected igneous rocks as they appear in the various strata; also, the external weathered outline as seen in knolls, hills, and plains.10 The igneous veins in the limestone represent those seen at Bidi and Bousoe. The veins shown in the schist occur at Cape Datu, and between Bidi and Gumbong. The red and yellow sandstones and their veins appear at Santubong and Mount Linga. The large mass of igneous rock in the section is at Mount Linga. The coal and its igneous veins and overlying mounds are represented as seen at Simunjen-neck, and at Balow and Klingkong. The red sandstone above the coal appears at Klingkong and Lanje. A great many kinds of igneous rocks penetrate these strata, altering and contorting them; but to attempt to arrange them in a section like the present would only tend to confuse. Specimens of the rocks are produced, with their names and sources stated. The limestones are the lowest deposits I have seen in the country. They underlie a great deposit of clay, siliceous schists, and thin sandstones. They are generally much disturbed by igneous injections, vertically, obliquely, and horizontally. These igneous rocks have been the agents in elevating the limestone, forming hills from 300 to 800 feet high. The clay schist also appears in little hills near the outcrop, but they are of inferior magnitude, the highest of them not being over 300 feet, while the average may be less than 100 feet. They are round and flat topped, and have a very different appearance from the limestone hills, the latter consisting of rough projecting crags and spurs, fluted with groups of spiral columns, and the surface showing the great loss sustained from the effects of time and weather. The limestone in general has this appearance more or less wherever I have seen it in great masses; and the abrading of the surface is in great measure due to the Bornean rains, which fall very copiously. The limestone under the surface shows great crevices, some of them thirty-six feet deep, sixty feet in length, and from one foot to twelve feet in width. These occur a few feet above the level of the river; but in the hills there are huge caverns caused by the decomposition of the igneous rocks perforating the limestone 11. The igneous rocks contain iron pyrites, with a little gold, and seem to have decomposed more readily than the limestone. It is in these caves where the best edible birds' nests are obtained. In the same caves I have measured columns of stalactite rising 105 feet 7 inches from the floor to the roof, and 12 feet in circumference. Some of the cave chambers are 80 feet wide by 325 feet long, narrowing at each end, and so lofty that I was unable to measure their height. There are some considerable lakes in the caves, with rivulets flowing from them. The largest piece of gold that I saw in the country was got from one of these caves. The general rise of all the strata is towards the limestone hills. The schist crops out, and rises at a very high angle from 45 to 80 at the base of these hills. The schist rises to and dips from them in every direction. There are other hills associated with them, which are as high, and sometimes higher; they may be described as a species of porphyry, sending out dykes and veins, and forming a series of lesser hills and knolls, from 10 feet to 800 feet high. Antimony, arsenic, and gold are always obtained at favourable junctions of these three descriptions of rock, and occasionally copper. Diamonds are also found amongst the clay and sand at their base. A hot spring issues from one of the dykes or veins of igneous rock in the Bousoe district. The antimony is generally mixed with porphyry rock, but pure and good antimony is met with in the limestone and schist, which form the matrix. The antimony occurs in round and in wedge-shaped masses, the igneous crust having decomposed, leaving the pure ore. The porphyry at Quop is very like the last-described igneous rock. The hills composed of it run in a line along the west side and close to the limestone, stretching from Quop to Gumbong. Viewed at a distance, their summits much resemble those of the Cuchullin Hills of Skye. Bidi, Bow, and Bousoe are the three important antimony and gold districts at the limestone hills. From Bow to the mouth of the Sarawak river the distance being about fifty miles the strata consist of schist, fire-clay, and thin bands of sandstone, and having occasionally fossil plants and mere traces of coal, with igneous rocks, forming dykes and mounds. There are three little hills near to Sarawak, and not far from the banks of the river, with a few feet of the undermost limb of the

sandstone on their tops, overlying the schist. There is a little white quartz hill at the Martabas mouth of the river, and at a junction of the sandstone and schist. Tanjong-Po, Santubong (2,700 feet high), Matang (3,168 feet high), and Singi are composed of sandstone resting on schist and igneous rock. These hills, with a few small ones, may be called outliers; the first three have curious bent conical sandstone columns at their summits. The Island of Sampadien has, on the west part, a few fathoms of the lowest of these sandstone beds resting on schist and igneous rock; the remainder is composed of schist and igneous rock alone. Gading, or Mount Brooke, is formed of granite, with schist around its base. Poy is also composed of granite, with schist around its base, turned up on edge; this mountain is upwards of 6,000 feet high. Cape Datu is formed of granite, overlying schist, which is metamorphosed; some of it is converted into slate, where it is in immediate contact with the granite, and where the action of the heat has been most intense; but towards Samatan it has not been so much affected by it. At the mouth of the river Samatan there is a young deposit of sandstone rock containing fossil shells; it is covered with loose white sand, and overlies a thick bed of clay, which contains plants. The clay is not consolidated like the sandstone, and is acted upon by the tides, which undermine the sandstone, causing it to fall over in large blocks from nine feet to twelve feet thick. The island of Talangtalang famous for turtle eggs is composed of granite and syenite, with quartz veins. The island of Satang-large is composed of schist and granite, with porphyritic veins containing a little copper. The island of Satang-little consists of schist metamorphosed, and porphyry with pyrites of iron and nickel. A report was current of a four feet coal on edge being found in the swamp, about two miles west of the village of Santubong. Mr. Dugud 12, who came out shortly after me, to be resident director, sent me to examine it. There is a little inlet of the river at the place of the reported coal, which, when I went to it, was covered by the tide to a depth of three feet of water. I had a pick, and cut some of the coal, for it really was coal; but when the tide had fully ebbed I found this coal to be a large tree which had been changed into coal; the exposed part was forty-eight feet long, with very little taper; the remainder was covered with the mud; but by digging out the mud under a part of it the circumference was found to be eighteen feet; more than a fourth of the upper part was worn or washed away by the tide, the rings of the tree resembling seams of coal, which had deceived the gentleman who had reported it as a coal on edge. I found many trees similar to this in the same bed at this part of the swamp, some of which were changed wholly into coal, and others partly into coal and partly into lignite. The fruit of the Nepa-palm, with other fruits and pieces of wood, were also converted into coal and lignite. A few yards farther in the swamp from where the first tree was got there was a black and brown sandstone stratum, with clayshale beds, and about eighteen feet in thickness, overlying this young coal bed. Here I found a regular deposit of trees, fruit, vegetable remains, and shells; and I considered that, at one time, the tree first observed had likewise been covered by these sandstones and shales, and subsequently laid bare by the washing of the tide. In this part of the swamp the stench was sickening and unbearable. Near the mouth of the Sadong river there is a little island of sandstone which underlies the coal. About fifteen miles up the river, where it is joined by the Simunjen river, there is a little hill, two miles inland, called Sidolo; it is composed of red and white quartz, with red sandstone at the base, so that the Sadong must flow about thirteen miles over red sandstone before coming to the undermost coal. About five miles from this hill and three miles from the junction is the mountain Gnili, where the Bornean Company opened up a coal mine and made a railway. The coal looked well at the crop-out along the face of the mountain, measuring from three feet to six feet thick, with three partings of fire-clay; but in working out the coal the fire-clay thickened and the coal got thin and irregular. The coal thus ceased to be profitable, and the Company stopped working it. There is another coal overlying this one about fifty-five fathoms; it is from two feet to two feet three inches thick, good and clean. Trap rock comes in contact with it about two miles south from the working mine, where it is partially an anthracite. There are a great many thin coals on this mountain, but none of a workable thickness. At the mouth of the river Lupar the country is crossed by a chain of granite hills, about 500 feet high, and called the Bliong hills: they terminate on the west bank of the river. There is also a small

hill in the centre of the river. All these hills obtrude through the red sandstone, which appears at their base. Towards Mount Linga red sandstone appears, along with part of the under limb of the coal. Mount Linga is wholly formed of red sandstone, resting on granite. I have measured here 500 fathoms of sandstone without any traces of coal, but saw trunks of fossil trees. This hill shows a vertical face of 400 feet all round, with no way of access to the top but by climbing up a water course. The Linga branch of the Lupar river flows from its source in the Klingkong hills, near the base of Mount Linga, over a distance of sixteen miles, through coal beds, shales, fire-clays, sandstones, and thin clay ironstones. The undermost of these coals varies from sixteen inches to twenty-two inches: it is a good bituminous coal. For fifty fathoms above this coal the strata are shale, fire-clay, and sandstone. There is another good bituminous coal, varying in thickness from two and a-half feet to three feet two inches. At Linga it is changed into anthracite by granite, and is four feet thick. For about 100 fathoms above this last coal the strata are composed of thin coals, fireclays, shales, and sandstones; and here there is another good bituminous coal, with from two to four divisions or partings in it. The coal varies in thickness from four and a-half feet to six and ahalf feet. On the side of the Klingkong range I have seen two miles of this coal's outcrop: it is very regular here. For about seventy-five fathoms above this thick coal the strata are thin-beds of coal, interstratified with greenstone and other igneous rocks, which have burned the coal where in contact with it. Some of the specimens produced illustrate these effects. There are also beds and bands of bituminous shale, clay shale, fire-clay, and clay ironstone, accompanied by sandstone. There is here a good and bituminous coal two feet thick. For about seventy-five fathoms above this two-feet coal the strata consist of thin coals, bituminous shales, clay shales, fire-clays, and ironstone balls and bands: the two thickest of these coals are respectively sixteen inches and twenty-two inches; they are covered with shale-beds containing some shells. These shell-beds and thin coals are covered with about 130 fathoms of red and white sandstones, from fine-grained to a large conglomerate, with no fossil shells: plants are very rare in them. The fossil shells at Balow, Mongo, Simunjenneck, five miles south from Simunjen coal mine, and at Lanje, are in the same position. Wherever I have found the fossil shells I have found the coals under them, with their shales containing plants. The plants are also very regular. I found out by these shells and plant-beds, and other characters of these strata, where to get the coals when they are covered by the alluvium. Wherever I got these shells I was sure to get the coals, and vice versa, where there was thickness of strata to show them both. This coalfield covers an area sixty miles long by an average of twenty miles broad. I consider there will be at least 600 square miles of Rajah Brooke's territory containing these thick coals; and the thin coals sometimes thicken from six inches to three feet in their course through the basin. There is a coal at Scarow only six inches in thickness, while at Lanje, in the same position, it is three feet thick. When I first went to Borneo the general appearance of the coal seemed to me to be the same as that of this country, having a great thickness of reddish sandstones on the top, and a great thickness of red sandstones under it, and again, under this, a great thickness of schist, with thin bands of sandstone, schist, and limestones. These last are rich in fossils, but on examining the plants in the coal district I found them to be tertiary; and as I thought the coal rested on old red sandstone, and this, again, on Silurian many of the fossils having a great resemblance to those of the Silurian system I brought home a few fossils from the different formations and submitted them to the inspection of eminent geological friends in London, Edinburgh, and Glasgow. None of them, however, have as yet given me a distinct definition of them, except Sir Roderick Murchison 13 and Mr. Salter, to whom I showed two small specimens of limestone fossils, and part of a plant (now on the table). The moment they saw them they pronounced them all to be tertiary fossils, although they were mere fragments. I felt myself very small when I heard that the limestone fossils also were tertiary. This was the most remarkable instance of geological sagacity I had ever seen in all my experience, and the best hint I ever received as to the importance of my studying Geology and Palaeontology more than I had hitherto done. I have now no doubt of these being all tertiary fossils. I may mention in connection with this that the only fossils which bore any resemblance to our coal plants were two from the schist, one got at Sarebas, like Stigmaria, and one at Sinawan, like the

stem of a Sigillaria; both are in the Company's collection at Sarawak. The course of the river Sarebas is nearly all through schistose and igneous rocks, which, in decomposing, form fine white clays and hydrous oxide of iron. The natives were accustomed to make their implements of war from this ore; but since the country came into the possession of Rajah Brooke, European iron has been introduced as an article of commerce, and they have ceased to use the native metal. This part of the country is hilly and undulating, with very little jungle, not unlike some of our upland districts in Scotland; it is thickly populated and well cultivated; the natives grow their own cotton and make their own cloth, being very industrious, but, withal, very fond of human heads. The Sakarran Dyaks are similar to these Sareban Dyaks, but more noble and gentlemanly if I may say so in all their habits, although they also have a penchant for human heads. The BalowHill, the Sow Dyaks, and the other Hill Dyaks resemble each other in their habits, but are not quite so addicted to the accumulation of skulls as the Sareban and Sakarran Dyaks. They are all spiritworshippers; and they believe that the number of slaves they will possess in the next world will be equal to the number of skulls which they collect in the present. The Bishop of Labuan and his missionaries have made a great many converts to Christianity among the Dyaks and the Chinese, but few, if any, among the genuine Malays. Mission work in Borneo is very laborious, requiring much ability, energy, and patience. The Bishop of Labuan seems to me to possess all the requirements of a successful Bornean missionary. These Dyaks manufacture mats of various kinds for their own use and for sale; they hunt, fish, cultivate a little rice, and gather in orchard and wild fruits and roots of the country. Every river teems with fish of various kinds. Every district abounds with large trees called Tapangs14, from 150 feet to 300 feet high, on which the bees construct their hives: when the honey is ready, the natives ascend by ladders of bamboo, smoke the bees, and remove the honey and wax. Wild pigs are in abundance: there are three kinds of deer hunted by the natives. The people know nothing of medicine; and when any one is sick, they ascribe it to a devil, and sing, chant, drum, and make a noise, to frighten it away. No very dangerous quadrupeds exist in Borneo: a small black bear with white breast 15, and a small tiger-cat16, are dreaded by some of the natives, but these animals are not dangerous. There are many different kinds of monkeys; a brown one with a long nose17, and the ourang-outang18, being the only large species. I never saw either of these animals far beyond the boundaries of the out-crop of the coal. I have seen a great many of the latter (the ourang), having lived some time in that part of the jungle which they frequent; but this paper will not admit of any details about them. Snakes of various kinds are plentiful, and these are the only animals I dreaded in that country. The crocodiles or alligators are of frequent occurrence in the rivers. Air-plants, pitcher-plants, rhododendrons, tree-ferns, and many magnificent flowering plants are seen. Butterflies and beetles are abundant, and of great beauty. Pheasants, partridges, water-crows, and king-fishers of gorgeous plumage are occasionally seen, but in no great numbers. What are termed flying foxes, flying squirrels, flying sloths, and flying lizards, I have observed in different districts. Wild pigeons and snipes occur, very like the species in this country, but the pigeons are larger.

1 This is only the second published account of the geology of Sarawak; the first was a chapter by Hiram Williams in Mundy, Borneo and the Celebes, (1848), which was accompanied by a map with section down the side. Transcribed and annotated by Martin Laverty, Dec.2011 2 James Russell was a Scot. In 1862 hew was described as Mineral Surveyor of Chapel-hall near Airdrie by TH Huxley in Quart.J.Geol.Soc. vol 19 (1863) in a Description of Anthracosaurus Russelli a new Labyrinthodont from the Lanarkshire coal field In 1870, Russell commented on a lecture by James Geikie " On the Carboniferous Formation of Scotland"in Trans.North of England Inst.Min.and Mech.Engineers pp.131-157, which brought up this exchange harking back to the 1862 find and the exploration in Sarawak: Mr. James Russell, mineral surveyor, Chapelhall, Airdrie, said, he had paid particular attention to Mr. Geikie's paper, and the excellent remarks of the President and Dr. Bryce. The subject of injected trap had engaged a good deal of attention both in England and in Scotland. He would like to get their opinion as to whether the rock was in a pulpy state, or was consolidated and hard? He thought there were proofs that it had been injected after the coal had been consolidated, because the coal in the hardened state was found covered up by the trap. He had observed a fine specimen of this exhibited in the hall down stairs. He drew attention to the important fact that there was no blackband ironstone found where there were no trap rocks; and if they were to make accurate observations, they would find that all the blackband ironstone occupied the place of inferior coal; and he was of opinion that those traps had much to do with making blackband ironstone. Dr. Bryce [President of the Glasgow Philosophical Society] stated, what might not be known to many of them, that Mr. Russell had some years ago gone out to Sarawak in Borneo and studied the formations at the mouth of a tropical river frequented by great reptiles. When he came home he had examined a tract of country underground, near Airdrie, of a like estuary character, and had found similar reptilean remains, the first found in this country in the coal strata. Mr. Russell said, that when at Borneo, he had had an opportunity of seeing coal-making, beds of sandstone forming, and beds of sandstone consolidating; and had read a paper on the subject to a learned Society. The beds of coal, he need not inform them, all contained plants and vegetable matter. He had particularly observed what had been a tree, about 18 feet in girth, which whilst subject to the influence of the tide, was undergoing the process of transformation into coal. The origin of the blackband ironstone he considered to be due to the impregnation of the iron from the trap, taken up by the vegetable and animal matter found in these beds. Native bitumen was found in crevices where igneous rocks passed through or near bituminous shale and coal beds. 3 The Borneo Company was registered in London in June 1856, initially to "take over and work Mines, Ores, Veins or Seams of all descriptions of Minerals in the Island of Borneo, and to barter or sell the produce of such workings". 4 John Harvey (1829-1879), Singapore merchant He had been a clerk at W.R.Paterson & Co. from 1843, the company then becoming McEwen & Co, and the Singapore branch of the Borneo Company, Limited, on 31 st July, 1857, where he was Managing Director.. 5 Russell was upcountry by March 1857 when the Chinese Insurrection took place: We may here mention that at the first outbreak of the Chinese, Mr. Russell, a mineralogist, in the employment of the Borneo Company, was in the interior of Sarawak on an exploring expedition, with a party often Malays, the Chinese being between him and Kuchin. The Malays behaved with great fidelity and resisted all attempts of the Chinese to get Mr. Russell into their power, advising him not to listen to the Chinese who invited him to take refuge in their forts under assurances of safety. TheMalays conducted him to the villages of the Dyaks amongst the hills, where he remained in security until the road to Kuchin was again open. [Singapore Free Press, 21st April] 6 F.T.McDougall (1817-1886), an Oxford rowing blue, doctor, and not bad with a gun... 7 Ludvig Verner Helms (1825-1918), a Dane, who recounted his time in Borneo in Pioneering in the Far East. He does not mention Mr.Russell. 8 Robert Coulson, a Durham miner, had worked in Labuan, entertained Alfred Russell Wallace at the Simunjan mines in 1855, and stayed a considerable time in the Far East. He met the party of 4 Northumbrian miners going to Simunjan in 1857 in Singapore (cf. From Dudley Colliery to Borneo) 9 George Ruppell, James Brooke's book-keeper from before 1845. 10 It seems odd that the section fails to portray the steep-sided form of the igneous mountains.or the limestone hills, which seem to be represented by the residual blocks seen in the flats around them. 11 Some of the caves are unusual in being intersected by igneous dykes, but the suggested mechanism of formation of the caves is unlikely: solution by the Bornean rains which fall very copiously is just as potent underground as he notes on the surface. 12 Peter Duguid, a Scot from Aberdeen (cf. From Dudley Colliery to Borneo) 13 Roderick Murchison (1792-1871), 2nd Director-General of the Geological Survey and President of the Royal Geographical Society 14 The Tapang,or honey tree, Koompassia excelsa 15 The Bornean sun-bear, Helarctos malayanus 16 The Sunda, or Bornean, clouded leopard, Neofelis diardi 17 The proboscis monkey, Nasalis larvatus 18 The orang utan, Pongo pygmaeus