Rinaud was a Dutch geologist or mining engineer whose 1885 survey of the coal seams of the West coast of Atjeh — cited in the standard form “RINAUD, 1885” with specific page references (pp. 161, 38, etc.) — is the earliest systematic printed description of Atjeh coal occurrences, and the source on which Zwierzycki’s 1922 inventory of Atjeh coal localities was, in part, built. Rinaud’s name accordingly appears in the source-line of the West-Atjeh coal-locality entries in Van Bemmelen’s *Geology of Indonesia* (1949) for the deposits along the Krueng Kluet, South of Tapatuan, and the Krueng Teunom.
The 1885 West-Atjeh coal survey
The recoverable contents of Rinaud’s 1885 survey, as cited by Zwierzycki and reproduced by Van Bemmelen, are:
- Downstream Krueng Kluet (No. 13 in Zwierzycki’s list): “Very thin seams”.
- South of Tapatuan (No. 14): “Seam 3 ft thick. For a distance of 2.5 km coal is exposed at 10 places. The deposit exists presumably of 2 beds of 0.5–2 ft thick”.
Both localities are assigned by Zwierzycki to the Paleogene series of Atjeh coals, and both are cited in the form “RINAUD, 1885, p. 161; ZWIERZYCKI, 1922” — which suggests that Zwierzycki’s 1922 entry for these localities was a re-publication of Rinaud’s earlier observation, with the addition of Zwierzycki’s own cartographic and stratigraphic framework.
Historical context
The date of Rinaud’s survey — 1885 — places it in the immediate aftermath of the Atjeh War’s most active phase. The Dutch colonial state had by the early 1880s consolidated its military control over the coastal fringes of Atjeh, and the Netherlands Indies Geological Survey (formally the Dienst van den Mijnbouw) was accordingly able, for the first time, to send geologists into the West-Atjeh coastal zone to record the coal occurrences that had long been known to local informants. Rinaud’s survey is the printed fruit of that opening-up of Atjeh to colonial scientific field-work; it stands at the head of the documentary sequence that runs through Hengeveld (1918/1919), Fryling (1921), Van Loheezen (1929), and Zwierzycki (1922) to Van Bemmelen (1949).
Significance
Rinaud is significant for the encyclopedia of Acheh history because his 1885 survey is the earliest systematic printed description of Atjeh coal occurrences, and accordingly the earliest evidence of the colonial state’s scientific penetration of the Atjeh coastal zone after the military consolidation of the early 1880s. The coal seams he recorded along the Krueng Kluet and south of Tapatuan — though “very thin” and of no economic importance — were nonetheless the first Atjeh mineral occurrences to enter the printed geological record, and Rinaud’s survey accordingly marks the beginning of the documentary history of Atjeh’s mineral economy.
See Also
- Acheh
- Aceh War
- Atjeh’s Westkust
- Coal in Atjeh
- H. Fryling
- J. H. Hengeveld
- J. Zwierzycki
- Krueng Kluet
- Krueng Teunom
- Tapatuan
- Van Bemmelen’s The Geology of Indonesia (1949)
- Van Loheezen
- 1885
Source
The Geology of Indonesia, by R. W. van Bemmelen, Vol. II: Economic Geology (The Hague: Government Printing Office; Martinus Nijhoff, 1949), pp. 49–56 (coal chapter, Table 13). Rinaud’s own survey cited, via Zwierzycki, as “RINAUD, 1885, p. 161” and “RINAUD, 1885; ZWIERZYCKI, 1922”.