The Philippine Islands Part 35

_Nelumbium speciosum_, Wild (Tagalog, _Baino_; Igorrote, _Sucao_).--An aquatic plant found in the Lake of Bay and other places. Beautiful pink or red flower. The natives eat the roots and seeds.

_Pa.s.siflora laurifolia_, Linn.--A curious Pa.s.sion-flower, quite different to the European species.

_Pancratium zeylanic.u.m_ (Tagalog, _Catongal_).--A bulb giving a very peculiar flower.

_Pinus toeda_.--The only kind of Pine known here. To be found in the mountains of Mancayan (Lepanto) and Benguet.

_Spathodea luzonica_, Blanco (Tagalog, _Tue_).--Grows to 15 feet. Gives a gorgeous white flower. Common on the sea-sh.o.r.es. The wood is used for making guitars and clogs.

_Philippine Orchids_ _The princ.i.p.al Orders_

** Natural crosses or hybrids--rare and valuable.

Genera. Species.

Aerides Augustiarium Lawrenciae Marginatum Quinquevulnerum Roebelinii Sanderianum Bulbophyllum Dearei Cymbidium Pendulum Pendulum atro purpureum Cypripedium Laevigatum Boxallii Stonei Argus Dendrobium Anosmum Aurem philippinense Crumenatum Erythroxanthum Dearei Macrophyllum Superb.u.m Superb.u.m giganteum Platycanlon Taurinum Gramatophyllum Measuresianum Multiflorum Multiflorum tigrinum Speciosum Phalaenopsis Amabalis **Casta **Intermedia **Intermedia brymeriana **Intermedia portei **Intermedia lencorrhoda Luddemaniana ochracia Schilleriana Rosea Sanderiana Sanderiana punctata Stuartiana Stuartiana bella Stuartiana n.o.bilis Stuartiana punctatissima Schilleriana vestalis Veitchiana Veitchiana brachyodon Platyclinis or Cobbiana Dendrochilum Filiformis Glumacea Uncata Renanthera Storiei Saccolabeum Violacc.u.m Blumei Blumei majus Sarcochilus Unguiculatus Vanda Sanderiana Sanderiana albata Sanderiana labello viridi Batemanii Lamellata boxallii

The generic name for Orchid in Tagalog is _Dapo_.

_Some interesting facts relating to Philippine Botany_

Sweet-smelling _Flowers_ are very rare. Of the few, the most popular in Manila is the _Sampaguita_ (probably a corruption of the Spanish name _Santa Paquita_), which is sold made up in necklet form on cotton.

Looking on to the Pasig River at Manila in the early morning, one often sees large ma.s.ses of floating verdure of a small-cabbage appearance. This aquatic plant is the _Pistia stratiotes_, Linn., (Tagalog, _Quiapo_).

The firewood in common use as fuel, in great demand, and known as _Raja de Tangal_, is the _Rhizophora longissima_. It is also useful for fencing, roof-framing, etc. Another well-known firewood is the _Rhizophora gynnorhiza_ (Tagalog, _Bacauan_). _Langary_ is also used as firewood of an inferior quality. They are swamp-trees.

The species _Pteclobyum_ gives the "Locust-bean," as sold at every little sweetmeat shop in London. This tree (when raised on or transplanted to highlands) may be called the friend of the coffee-plant, for it opens its leaves in the sunshine to shade it and closes them when rain is about to fall, so that the coffee-plant may be refreshed by the water. Also, at night, it closes its leaves to give the coffee-plant the benefit of the dew. Another peculiar feature is that the branches lopped off for household fuel can, when barked, be used at once, without needing to be dried or seasoned. Its natural habitat is the mangrove swamp, and the trunk and root give market fuel.

_Colot-colotan_, or _Manquit_, is the Tagalog name given to the _Chrysopogon aciculatus_, Trin. (Spanish, _Amor seco_)--the little particles like pointed gra.s.s-seeds which stick to one's trousers or skirt when crossing an uncultivated field and can only be removed by picking them out one by one.

The Tagalog affix _aso_, to the name of a botanical specimen, means _pseudo_, i.e. not the genuine species; v.g., _Sincamas_ is the _Decandria--Pachyrhizus angulatus_ (_vide_ p. 321), whereas _Sincamas-aso_ is the _D.--Pachyrhizus monta.n.u.s_.

Many places take their names from trees and plants, v.g.:--

Antipolo (Rizal) a tree.

Bauang (Batangas) garlic.

Bulacan (Bulacan) a tree.

Capas (Pangasinan) the cotton-tree (Igorrote dialect).

Camagon Is. a tree.

Cabuyao (Laguna) a tree.

Calumpit (Bulacan) a tree.

Culasi (Antique) a tree.

Iba (Zambales) a plant.

Lucbang (Tayabas) a small lime.

Lipa (Batangas) nettle.

Quiapo (Manila suburb) an aquatic plant.

Sampaloc (Manila suburb) the tamarind-tree.

Salomague (Ilocos) the tamarind-tree. (Igorrote dialect).

Tabaco (Albay) the tobacco-plant.

Taal (Batangas) a tree (same as _Ipil_).

Talisay (Batangas) a tree.

_Medicinal Herbs, Roots, Leaves, and Barks_ abound everywhere. Nature provides ample remedies for dysenteric, strumatic, s...o...b..tic, and many other diseases. An extensive work on the subject was compiled by Ignacio de Mercado, the son of a Spanish Creole father and Tagalog mother, born in 1648 at Paranaque, seven miles from Manila. He was parish priest in Lipa in 1674, and subsequently held several other inc.u.mbencies up to his death, which took place in Bauang (Batangas) on March 29, 1698. His MS. pa.s.sed from the pharmacy of one religious corporation to another to be copied, and for over a century after the British occupation of Manila (1762-63) it was supposed to be lost. Finally, in 1876, it was discovered by Don Domingo Vidal y Soler, who gave it to the Augustine friars for publication, but I am not aware that it was ever printed. According to Manuel Blanco, Ignacio de Mercado's MS. describes 483 medicinal specimens, and attached to the description are 171 coloured sketches of medicinal plants, leaves, woods, and barks, and also 35 coloured sketches of plants, etc., without any description of their medicinal properties. The only one of these remedies which I have had occasion to test on myself is _Tagulauay Oil_, extracted from the leaves of the plant called in Tagalog _Tangantangan_. It is an excellent styptic.

_Ylang-Ylang_ (_Anona odoratissima_, Blanco; _Cananga odorata_, Hook) and _Champaca_ (_Michelia champaca_, Linn.) yield odoriferous essential oils, and these fine perfumes are, especially the former, exported to foreign countries. The export of _Ylang-Ylang_ in the years 1902 and 1903 amounted to 3,949 and 5,942 gallons respectively.

CHAPTER XIX

Mineral Products Coal--Gold--Iron--Copper--Sulphur, Etc.

Owing to the scarcity of manufacturing industries in this Colony, the consumption of _Coal_ is very limited, and up to 1889 it hardly exceeded 25,000 tons per annum. In 1892 nearly double that quant.i.ty found a market. In 1896 the coal imported from Newcastle (New South Wales) alone amounted to 65,782 tons; in 1897 to 89,798 tons. A small proportion of this is employed in the forges, foundries, and a few steam-power factories, most of them situated around Manila, but by far the greater demand is for coaling steam-ships. Since the American occupation the increase of steam-shipping and the establishment of ice-plants all over the Colony have raised the consumption of coal. Wood fuel is still so abundant in rural districts that coal will probably not be in general request for the steam sugar-mills for many years to come.

Australia, Great Britain, and j.a.pan supply coal to this Colony; in 1892 Borneo traders sent several cargoes of inferior product to Manila; nevertheless, local capital has been expended from time to time in endeavours to work up the home deposits.

Philippine coal is more correctly speaking highly carbonized lignite of the Tertiary age, and a.n.a.logous to j.a.panese coal. Batan Island, off the south-east coast of Luzon Island, is said to have the finest lignite beds in the Archipelago.

The island of Cebu contains large deposits of lignite. The mines of Compostela are estimated to be very rich in quant.i.ty and of medium quality. The late owner, Isaac Conui, for want of capital, was unable to develop them fully. Transport by buffalo-carts from the mines to the coast was very deficient and costly, and Conui, who was frequently my guest in Manila in 1883, unsuccessfully sought to raise capital for constructing a line of railway from the collieries to Compostela village (east coast). They were then taken up by a Spaniard, with whom the Spanish Government made contracts for coaling the gunboats. A tram line was laid down to the pits, but there was a great lack of prompt.i.tude in deliveries, and I heard of ships lying off the coaling-wharf for several hours waiting to _start_ coaling. The enterprise has by no means given an adequate return for the over P100,000 invested in it up to the year 1897. The coal-mine of Danao, on the same coast, has not been more prosperous. When I visited it in 1896 it had not yielded a cent of nett profit. In 1904 I made the acquaintance, in Cebu Island, of a holder of P47,000 interest in this enterprise. He told me that he had got no return for his money in it. He had spent P1,000 himself to have the mine inspected and reported on. He sent the report to his co-partners in Manila, and heard no more about it until he went to the capital, where he learnt that the Managing Director had resigned, and no one knew who was his successor, what had become of his report, or anything definite relating to the concern.

Anthracite has been found in Cebu, [155] and satisfactory trials have been made with it, mixed with British bituminous coal. Perhaps volcanic action may account for the volatile bituminous oils and gases having been driven off the original deposits. The first coal-pits were sunk in Cebu in the Valle de Masanga, but the poor commercial results led to their abandonment about the year 1860. There are also extensive unworked coal deposits a few miles from the west coast village of Asturias, which I visited in 1896 with a planter friend, Eugenio Alonso, who was endeavouring to form a coal-mining syndicate. The _Revista Minera_ (a Madrid mining journal) referred in 1886 to the coal of the Alpaco Mountain, in the district of Naga (Cebu Is.) as being pure, dry, of easy combustion, carrying a strong flame, and almost free from sulphur pyrites. Cebu coal is said to be of better quality and cleaner than the Labuan and Australian products, but its heating powers being less, it is less serviceable for long sea voyages.

The coal-mines in the hills around the c.u.mansi Valley, about eight miles from the Cebu coast (Danao) have been worked for years without financial success. The quality is reported excellent. Indeed, in several of the larger islands of the Colony there are outcrop indications of workable coal, un.o.btainable for want of transport facilities.

In the Province of Albay, the SuG.o.d Collieries were started by a company formed in the year 1874. There were some fifteen partners, each of whom subscribed a capital of P14,300. One of these partners, Ceferino de Aramburu, told me that for a while the result was so good that a Manila banking firm offered to take over the concern from the shareholders at a premium of 20 per cent. upon the original capital. About 4,000 tons of coal were extracted, most of which was given away as samples, in the hope of large contracts resulting from the trials, although it is said that the consumption was too rapid, and that it had to be mixed with Cardiff coal. Seven pits were sunk, and the concern lingered on until the year 1881, when its working was relinquished. The failure was attributed to the shallowness of the pits, which were only 30 metres deep, whilst it was supposed that if the excavation had been continued before these pits were flooded, shale and limestone strata could have been removed, exposing a still more valuable seam, in which case it might have been worth while providing pumping-machinery. The cost of extraction and delivery on the coast was estimated at 75 cents of a peso per ton, whilst Cardiff coal in Manila was worth, at the time, about eight pesos per ton, and the Australian product ranged usually at one to one and a half pesos below that figure, port tax unpaid.

In January, 1898, "The Philippine Mining and Development Company, Limited," was formed in Hong-Kong with a capital of $1,600,000 (Mex.) in 160,000 $10 shares for the development of Philippine coal deposits and other industries, under the management of a Scotch merchant of long standing and good repute in Manila (since deceased). The Spanish-American conflict which arose four months later impeded active operations by the company.

In May, 1902, a company styled "Minas de Carbon de Batan" was const.i.tuted to purchase from and exploit the coal-mines of Messrs. Gil Hermanos, situated in the Island of Batan, Sorsogon Province. The purchase price was fixed at P500,000, and the company's capital at P1,000,000 divided into 5,000 equal shares. Hopeful reports were made on the property by an American, a Spanish, and a j.a.panese mining engineer respectively. When I interviewed the Managing Director of the company, in Manila, two years after its formation, no dividend had yet been paid to the shareholders.

_Comparative a.n.a.lyses of Coal_

Source. Fixed Carbon. Volatile matter. Water. Ash.

per cent. per cent. per cent. per cent.

Cardiff 83.00 8.60 4.50 3.90 Australia 71.45 16.25 2.90 9.40 Cebu 57.94 31.75 9.23 1.08 Rock Spring, Wyo. 56.50 34.50 6.25 2.75 Cebu 51.96 37.56 7.80 2.68 Cebu 49.50 35.03 11.18 3.62

I do not know that any capitalist has ever received an adequate return for his investment in Philippine coal-mining.