J. H. Hengeveld was a Dutch geologist or mining engineer whose 1918/1919 report on the coal occurrences of northern Sumatra — cited in the standard form “HENGEVELD, 1918/1919” — is one of the principal sources for Zwierzycki’s 1922 inventory of Sumatran coal localities, and accordingly for Van Bemmelen’s *Geology of Indonesia* (1949) in its treatment of the Atjeh coal occurrences. Hengeveld’s report is specifically cited for the Langkat coal localities of Besitang River (No. 5), Lepan (No. 6) and Sarangan (No. 7), where the seams are 0.5–3 ft thick and “quality good”.
The 1918/1919 coal report
The recoverable contents of Hengeveld’s report, as cited by Zwierzycki and reproduced by Van Bemmelen, cover the Langkat-residency coal localities that lie immediately to the south of the Atjeh coal zone. These localities — Besitang River, Lepan and Sarangan — are geologically continuous with the East-Atjeh coal series, and Hengeveld’s report on them accordingly supplies the immediate southern extension of the Atjeh coal record. His recorded analytical figures for these Langkat coals — moisture 1–1.5 %, ash 12–24 %, coke 60–70 %, calorific value 6000–7000 — are the standard colonial benchmarks for the northern-Sumatran Paleogene coal series.
Place in the Atjeh coal record
Hengeveld’s report occupies, in the documentary sequence of Atjeh and northern-Sumatran coal exploration, the middle position between the foundational survey of Rinaud (1885) and the consolidated inventory of Zwierzycki (1922). The sequence runs:
- Rinaud (1885): the West-Atjeh coal seams (Krueng Kluet, Tapatuan, Krueng Teunom).
- Philippi (1918): the coastal-region coal occurrences south of Atjeh (Ajer Padang, Ajer Lais, Ajer Besi, Ajer Nepal, etc.).
- Hengeveld (1918/1919): the Langkat-residency coal localities (Besitang River, Lepan, Sarangan).
- Fryling (1921): additional Langkat and East-coast data.
- Van Loheezen (1929): later supplementary observations.
- Zwierzycki (1922): the consolidated inventory.
Hengeveld’s contribution to this sequence is the systematic analytical data — moisture, ash, coke, calorific value — for the Langkat coals, which supplied the quantitative benchmarks against which the Atjeh coal occurrences were subsequently assessed.
See Also
- Acheh
- Atjeh’s Westkust
- Besitang River
- Coal in Atjeh
- H. Fryling
- J. Zwierzycki
- Langkat
- Lepan
- Philippi
- Rinaud
- Sarangan
- Van Bemmelen’s The Geology of Indonesia (1949)
- Van Loheezen
- 1918
- 1919
Source
The Geology of Indonesia, by R. W. van Bemmelen, Vol. II: Economic Geology (The Hague: Government Printing Office; Martinus Nijhoff, 1949), p. 49 (Table 13, coal localities of Sumatra). Hengeveld’s own report cited as “HENGEVELD, 1918/1919”, in conjunction with “ZWIERZYCKI, 1922, p. 37”.