The Anaconda standard. [volume] (Anaconda, Mont.) 1889-1970, 1899-01-02
coALING STATIONS.
.31 Ports Outside of Europe Where Coal
Is Sold to Steamships

Is Sold to Steamships.
Four thousand men are engaged to-
day in making Gibraltar one of the
greatest coaling stations and depots
for the retitting of warships in the
world. It will take two or three years
vet to carry out the plans for extend
ing the docks and other accommodate
lions required for the repairing Of ma,
val vessels and to secure perfect pro-
lection from outward attack for the
vast quantity of coal that is always
kept in stock at that great station.
All the improvements are to cost about
$4,000 900.
We hear most of all nowadays about
the coaling stations that are needed for
navieS They are, of course, equally
essential for the merchant marine
Three-fourths of the worlds commerce
is carried on steamships, and the whole
of the power used by all nations for tine
defense of commerce depends upon the
use Of coal. Without security of the
seas there can be no security of COM
merce, and so there must be gcograph-
ical continuity of coaling stations all
around the world. This fact greatly
impressed Great Britain, for it touches
her very existence. Look at her line
of government coaling stations along
all the great trade routes.
Along the route to the Orient: Glib
raltar, Malta, Alden, Bombay, Trinco-
malice, Singapore, Hong Kong. Along
the East Atlantic route: Sierra Leone,
Ascension, st. Helena, Cape Town
Mauritius. In Australian waters: Aus
tralian and New Zealand ports. Along
the West Atlantic route: Halifax,
Quebec, Bermuda, st. Lucia, Kingston
and Falkland Islands; and in the
Northeast Pacific, Esquimalt After
hot of
west coasts of Canada, South Africa,
India and Australia. For a nation
whose commerce is all around the
world, little more could be done to
make geographical unity complete.
In time of peace coal can be bought
by any naval vessel and the merchant
marine in most of the ports of the
world, but not in all of them. Coal is
kept as commodity at 2S1 ports of the
world outside of Europe, where every
port is a coal depot, and dealers, of
course, are glad to have buyers of con-
siderable quantities like the captains
of steamships come along. At little
islands like Nossi Be and Comoro in
the Indian ocean. and Samoa and the
Fiji islands, in the Pacific, merchants
keep good supply of coal on hand,
and practically their only customers in
these tropical regions are passing
vessels At these out-of-the way plac-
es ship captains buy only a sufficient
quantity to carry them to a port where
coal is a more generally used commOd-
ity, for dealers, where there is little Or
no competition in the article, often
charge an eXorbitant price for it. Coal
is now sold at such low figures in our
own ports that most steamers in the
transatlantic trade usually coal on this
side of the ocean for the round trip.
1t happens, therefore, sometimes, that
when they are coming back to Amer
lea and are greatly delayed on the way
their supply runs short, and we hear
now and then that they have been COM
PEELED to put into Halifax for coal.
Except in the Pacific supplies of coal
are now scattered so widely over tie
world that usually a vessel requires
only a few days slow sailing or
steaming to reach some port where
it may replenish it's bunkers. Suppose,
for instance, that one of our steam
whalers in the Arctic, after a season
north of Boring strait, should run short
of coal, it has only to go south as far
as Unalaska, in the Aleutian archipel-
ago, too buy all it needs.
Outside of Europe coal is specially
kept for sale to steamers at eight ports
on the north coast of Africa; at IL
ports of West Africa, including the
Cape Verde islands and the Canaries:
at IA ports along the Gulf of Mexico
and the Caribbean sea; at "a ports of
the West indies; at % Atlantic ports
of North America as far south as the
Gulf of Mexico; at five islands of the
Atlantic; at nine ports of East Africa;
at six islands of the Indian ocean; at
26 ports of the East Indies and Phil
ippines; at IA ports of the East Asian
coast; at five ports of Japan, Sachalin
and Kamptchatka; at 10 ports of Aus
tralia; at seven ports of New Zealand;
at 10 ports on the west of North Amer
lea; at 10 ports on the west of South
America; at Honolulu and Hilo in the
North Pacific, and at four islands in
the South Pacific.-New York Sun.
Georges Discovery.