Annual report on Sarawak.

Date:
[1959]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Annual report on Sarawak. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    103/282 (page 83)
    8? sufficient quarries now exist to supply Sarawak with both the quality and quantity needed, economies can still be made by finding stone in areas where it is to be used, as its price on site depends mainly on the distance it has to be transported. About thirty-seven miles of the ninety-mile road from Serian in the First Division to Simanggang in the Second Division, has been built, and quarrying of stone from some of the fourteen possible quarry sites discovered near the road-trace is providing ample material for road-building. This is speeding up construction and also saving large sums which would otherwise have to be spent in transporting stone. Minerals Investigated Minerals referred to briefly below have been investigated during 1959, but not mined. In past reports full details have been given. Coal. Four general prospecting licences for coal were issued in 1959 for the Silantek-Abok, Simunjan, Bintulu, and Tatau areas. A party including two mining engineers from the Nippon Coal Mining Company Limited of Japan spent four months in the Silantek-Abok and Bintulu areas prospecting for coking coal. The preliminary results from surface prospecting are encouraging, and the company have applied to resume prospecting during i960. More than thirty coal occurrences are known in Sarawak, but the best known are at Sadong, in the Silantek-Abok area, and around Bintulu and Mukah. Antimony. No mining for antimony was recorded in 1959, but four general prospecting licences were issued for the Bau and Baram areas, one of which also permitted mercury prospecting. The main known deposits are in the Bau area, west Sarawak and consist largely of the sulphide, stibnite. This mineral was discovered in 182.3 and about 83,000 tons have been produced since then. Mercury. No mercury ore was mined in 1959, but two general prospecting licences were issued for the Bau area. A Japanese company used geophysical methods in their prospecting. The mercury occurs mainly as the sulphide, cinnabar, and recorded production is 21,598 flasks of 76 lbs. of mercury, mostly between 1871 and 1900.