Captain J. B. Coghlan succeeded him in command of the _Adams_, and the Indians having been in the main peaceful, and the mining camp all quiet, Captain Coghlan gave a great deal of time to careful surveying of the more frequented channels of the inside passage. He marked off with buoys the channel through Wrangell Narrows, marked the more dangerous rocks and the channel in Peril Straits, corrected the erroneous position of several bays and coves, examined and reported new anchorages, and designated unknown rocks and ledges in Saginaw Channel and Neva Strait. In addition to this practical part of his profession, Captain Coghlan looked to the other interests confided to him. He visited all the Indian settlements, looked up their abandoned villages, encouraged prospectors and kept a keen eye on all mineral discoveries. An especial want in Alaska is a good coal mine, and although there are seams of it all through the islands, none of it is valuable for steaming purposes, and the Nanaimo coal has to be relied upon. Early voyagers discovered coal a half century ago, and a vein on Admiralty Island has been regularly discovered and announced to the world by every skipper who has touched there since. Captain Coghlan was keenly alive to the importance of finding good coal in this favored end of the territory, and he told the story of the latest discovery in a way to make his listeners weep from laughter.
While out on a survey trip one day, an Indian came to him mysteriously and said: “Heap coal up stream here,” at the same time stealthily showing a lump of the genuine article. Quietly, and so as to attract as little attention as possible, the captain, two sporting friends, and the Indian started off, ostensibly duck-hunting. After they left the harbor of Sitka the Indian led the way up a narrow channel, and turned into St. John the Baptist’s Bay, where careful and extensive surveys had been conducted but a short time before. The officers began to look amazed, but the Indian led on until he beached his canoe and triumphantly showed them a pile of anthracite coal stored under the roots of the tree. The coal-hunters recognized it as some of the anthracite coal that had been sent from Philadelphia, and this lot had been stored there for the convenience of the steam launches, on their trips between the ship and points where they were surveying in Peril Straits. Securing the quiet of the Indian, the officers went back to the ship, and after a few days gave specimens of coal to different experts on board. Tons of the same article lay in the bunkers under them, but the experts went seriously to work with their clay pipes and careful tests. None of them agreed about it. One of them declared it good coal, of good steaming quality and pure ash. Another one said it was lignite, and of no value, and never could be used for steaming. Rumors of the discovery of a coal mine soon spread through Sitka, and one man started out to follow up what he supposed had been the course of the coal-hunters, with the evil intent of jumping that mine. The ship was just starting off on a cruise, so followed the jumper, and overtaking him in his lone canoe at Killisnoo, the coal-hunter turned pale and nearly died with fright lest he should be punished with naval severity for his wicked designs. The joke on the coal-hunters, the coal experts, and the would-be jumper of the coal mine made the ship ring when it was told.