The question of obtaining fuel for the boilers in the Kabul workshops has lately become of urgent importance, for the trees of the country up to several days’ journey from Kabul have been used up, and further fuel is barely obtainable, while the young trees which have been planted in places for a future supply of fuel will not be ready for cutting for eight years or more to come. In an effort to remedy matters, the present Amir, a year or so ago, issued a proclamation offering a large reward to any one finding coal near to Kabul. The reward was to be thirty thousand rupees for coal found within five miles of the city, twenty thousand rupees within ten miles, ten thousand within twenty miles, and so on. But there was one stipulation, and that was, that the coal found should be so located that a road could be constructed up to within a mile of the mine for wheeled traffic, otherwise the amount of reward would be reduced in proportion to the distance from the mine to which carts could be brought. The proclamation resulted in the country for many miles around being very thoroughly prospected by the people, and although very few of them had ever seen coal, they eventually found thin seams outcropping in several places, which evidently belonged to one original bed or field of coal before subterranean disturbances dislocated the sub-strata around. I was sent to inspect and report on these outcrops, and found that it was new coal in such thin seams that the yield would not repay the cost of working, and borings failed to reveal the existence of thicker seams within easy reach below. A gang of my men, who were appointed to search further afield, found thick seams of new coal at Sheikh Ali, some six days’ journey from Kabul towards Hazara, and further outcrops were discovered at other places on the same range of mountains; but in this case also the intervening mountains made the cost of camel transport far too expensive for the Government to take advantage of the find, and the Amir is strongly prejudiced against anything in the way of tram or light railways, which would be the only way of carrying coal thence cheaply. It is more than probable that the Kabul workshops will have to close soon for want of fuel to keep the machines running, and the Amir told me, shortly before I left Kabul, that the local supply of wood is exhausted, and that there is little likelihood of coal being found near enough to be of value. The last winter I spent in Kabul, wood was so scarce that it realized three times the price of five years before, and there was very little to be had even at that price.