the annual produce of coal from Northumberland and Durham was 16,221,001 tons. Abate this to an annual average of 10,000,000 tons (it will, in all probability, be half as much more), or 3,773,585 Newcastle chaldrons of round coal; and then we can easily reckon that the reduced amount will be exhausted in 331 years. Should the demand and supply increase, as they have done of late years, we may affirm, in round numbers, that three centuries will see this great coal field exhausted or hopelessly impoverished. To confirm the authority of the figures, it is remarkable that a mining engineer (Mr. Greenwell) arrived, in 1846, at the same result as Mr. Hall has arrived at more recently, namely, 331 years. Both these gentlemen have assured us that after trying various methods of computation, they have come to very nearly the same final figures. We have only given the results, but having looked over the details of each seam, we are disposed fully to rely upon their statements. Some of our other principal coal fields might be the subject of similar prophecies. For instance, the immense consumption of coal in the iron furnaces and foundries of Staffordshire will probably lead to an exhaustion of that coal field even before Northumberland and Durham; for its area is scarcely more than one half of the area of the Northern coal field. It has, indeed, one very thick seam of coal of from 30 to 40 feet; but this will not alone counterbalance the difference. Wherever coal fields are situated amongst numerous iron works and manufactories, as well as large populations, there is a continual and increasing demand upon the produce of the mines; and thus even Yorkshire, Lancashire, and Derbyshire are more than living up to their income of coals. The quantity for supply being fixed, and the quantity demanded being continually on the increase, the actual period of exhaustion is not difficult to predict, though it may be unwelcome to anticipate. We shall, however, have resources at that period which will prevent a bituminous bankruptcy; and these will be found in one or more coal fields not at present so largely worked as those previously named: particularly the great coal field of South Wales will afford an abundant supply for many years to come. We prefer to speak in detail of this field when we come to treat of steam coal, of which it is the great repository, not only for ourselves but also for foreign markets. In all departments of activity and ingenuity the advance has been commensurate with the demand and supply of coal. Indeed, we doubt, whether any equal space in the world, not occupied as building ground for towns and cities, has witnessed such a rapid development of human labour and resources. Few sights of a commercial kind are more impressive than those which may be every day and night witnessed in these districts, where coal waggons are careering in successive trains over far-stretching railways, and hurrying down to rivers and ocean, until they are unloaded, and their contents shipped by gigantic machinery. Steam engines are unceasingly at work drawing coals and pumping out water. Thousands of men are underneath our feet cutting down the coal by severe and peculiar labour. Thousands are around us receiving loads and despatching them by railways, and screening the coals by dashing them upon huge screens standing in long rows, whence fly up black clouds of impalpable coal dust, filling ears and eyes and throats with microscopic specimens of coal. Go where you will, there is a network of small railways leading from pit to pit in hopeless intricacy, but all having a common terminus on the river's bank, or the ocean's shore. Go where you will, tall chimneys rise up before you; and here and there a low line of black sheds, flanked by chimneys of aspiring altitude, indicates that you are arriving at a colliery. As you draw nearer, men and boys of blackest hue pass you and peer at you with inquiring glances. Now trains of coal waggons rush by more frequently, noises of the most discordant character increase, and you know that you are at the pit's mouth when you behold two gigantic wooden arms slanting upwards, upon which are mounted the pulleys and wheels that carry the huge flat wire ropes of the shaft. For a moment the wheels do not revolve,no load is ascending or descending, but the next minute they turn rapidly, and up comes the load of coals, or human beings, to the surface. Perhaps the most impressive sight is a large colliery fully engaged at night work, with burning crates of coal suspended all around; and after this a view, from some neighbouring eminence, of all the far-flaming waste coal heaps, burning up the accumulation of waste and small coal not worth carriage, ever added to the ever-consuming mound, until the whole district appears like the active crater of some enormous volcano. It is difficult to form anything approaching to a correct estimate of the produce, the destination, and the consumption of coal; but if sixteen million tons be the present annual yield from the Northern coal field, we are assured that the total annual produce of our three thousand British coal mines is (as the maximum) no less than sixty-eight millions of tons!-a quantity more than double of what had been conjectured, but now confirmed by careful researches and unquestionable authority. It is very difficult to convey an adequate conception of this vast produce; but if, as a collier has calculated, these sixtyeight millions of tons were excavated from a pit-gallery six feet high and twelve feet wide, such a gallery must be 5128 miles and 1090 yards in length. Or if, instead of this tunnel of more than five thousand miles, we prefer the conception of a solid globe, then the diameter of a globe containing this annual produce must be 1549.9 feet. Should a pyramidal form be chosen, then this quantity would constitute a pyramid, the square base of which would extend forty acres, and the height of which would be 3,356.914 feet.* It has been doubted whether it be possible to form any adequate conjecture of the extent and amount of coal in the principal countries of the world.† But although geological The annexed table has been prepared to show, in a compendious form, the aggregate distribution of coal over the United Kingdom, in one recent year, 1854. In the year 1858 the total produce was rather less, as previously stated. 4. North and South Wales, Scotland, and Ireland Totals Tons. 16,221,001 8,688,551 4,300,000 3,232,450 15,811,670 719,913 3,862,780 11,228,977 16,189,366 587,000 3,734,693 11,867,673 17,239,750 8,824,047 10,650,000 2,765,703 65,461,787 18,819,511 22,547,373 29,094,803 From these totals it will be seen how large a proportion of our annual yield of coal (more than one third of the whole) is absorbed by iron works. This, again, is chiefly appropriated to a limited area, where iron works are situated. Thus we find that in 1854 Staffordshire and Worcestershire yielded 7,500,000 tons of coal, out of which they consumed for their manufacture of pig iron alone 3,415,200 tons. So also, six Welsh counties unitedly produced nearly 10,000 tons of coal, and consumed more than 5000 tons in their iron works. In Scotland nearly five sevenths of the annual coal produce was applied in the same way. It has been found impossible to arrive at true statistics of coal in almost any country, nor was our own an exception until very recently. Mr. Richard C. Taylor was the first who made the attempt, and he published in the United States, a laboriously compiled volume entitled 'The Statistics of Coal,' which we reviewed in the XCth volume of this journal, page 525, and we refer our readers to that article for an abridgment of Mr. Taylor's interesting calculations and diagrams. The first edition appeared in 1845, and a second edition, somewhat enlarged by others, appeared in 1855. surveys of many foreign coal fields remain to be made, and authoritative statistics are very imperfect, yet enough has been done by geologists, and by public and personal research, to enable us to arrive, at least, at an approximative estimate of this nature. As Professor Rogers has not hesitated to put forth an estimate of American and European coal fields, we will adopt it, and arrange it for our present purpose in a note. Doubtless advancing knowledge will lead to an amendment of some figures, nor are we confident that some of them should not be reconsidered; but admitting such possible defects, the statement is highly interesting aud suggestive.* * Summary view of American and European Coal Fields. The aggregate space underlaid by the vast coal fields of North America amounts to nearly 200,000 square miles, or to more than 20 times the area, including all the known coal deposits of Europe, or indeed of the whole Eastern continent. Comparing the assumed areas and solid contents of the coal fields of other countries with those of North America, we have the fol lowing results : I. Estimated Areas of Coal in Principal Countries. II. Estimated Quantities of Coal in Principal Countries. Belgium (average thickness, 60 feet of coal) British Islands (average thickness, 35 feet). 1,387,500,000,000 1,277,500,000,000 Missouri and Arkansas Basin (10 feet in thickness) 739,000,000,000 All the productive coal fields of North America (assuming thickness of 20 feet of coal over 200,000 square miles). . 4,000,000,000,000 It will be perceived at once that no characteristic of the northern continent of America is more remarkable than the unbounded fields of coal which it possesses. Nearly 200,000 square miles of coal fields can scarcely be grasped at first thought; and if we should go back to the growth and accumulation of vegetable matter necessary to their formation, can anything that we now behold on the surface of the globe afford us a parallel in an equal space? Our own coal fields, in the aggregate, would form but a black speck beside them, upon any map. The possession of such an amazing deposit leads us to forecast a future of almost boundless enterprise and production for that wonderful country. We must however wait, before we prophesy, to learn more of the character of the North American coal. At present it has been but little worked compared with its extent, and what has been brought to market cannot be regarded as equal to our own best household coal. The total produce of America, for the whole thirty-five years from 1820 to 1855, did not exceed the produce of Northumberland and Durham for four years, from 1851 to 1855, while it was less than the total annual yield of the United Kingdom by seven millions of tons. The total United States' produce, in 1855, was 7,600,000 tons; and the same amount was, in the same year, yielded by Scotland alone.* III. The Ratio of the estimated quantities of coal in the more important of these several coal countries is shown approximatively in the following series of numbers, making the coal of Belgium, or 36,000,000,000 tons, our unit of measure: France, less than British Islands, rather more than Pennsylvania, a little less than Appalachian coal field, about 125 9 381 Illinois, Indiana, Western Kentucky Basin 351 Entire coal fields of North America 20 111 83 The great coal deposit of Pennsylvania (though itself comparatively small) is anthracite, and the immense coal fields in the valley of the Mississippi, are composed of slatecoal, which is of a similar character. It has been observed by Professor Rogers (who personally pointed this out to us, upon an unpublished geological map of America,) that there is a geological feature of high interest, connected with the position of the comparatively small anthracitic basins of America. They lie bordering upon a long ridge of contorted strata, highly metamorphosed, and the metamorphic action seems to have so affected the adjacent coal, as to convert it into anthracite, by burning out the |