one million of tons of ironstone. The consumption here is very great, and cannot continue longer than two hundred years. But what vast riches have been already gathered out of this portion of the black country! In North Staffordshire there is an area of seventyfive square miles of coal measures. Iron also abounds, and in this district are situated the Potteries, a group of populous towns, from which all parts of the world are supplied with china-ware, rivalling that of Dresden, with vases and various kinds of vessels modelled after Etruscan patterns, but adorned with paintings after natural models, executed with a perfection of colouring and outline to which the Etruscans never attained. Here also are produced those tessellated pavements which adorn so many of our churches and public buildings.'* There have been collected from this field many fossil remains, including ichthyolites, mollusca, and plants of the carboniferous genera. There are 123 collieries over the district, which produce 1,295,000 tons of coal, and will last 1,270 years.

Lancashire has a coal-field covering an area of 217 square miles. In 1857 there were 8,565,500 tons raised, and at the same rate there yet remains about the depth of 4,000 feet, as much as will last for 445 years. There are 390 collieries, including 31 in Cheshire, in this extensive district. At Pendleton there is a colliery 536 yards deep, and at Dukinfield, in Cheshire, one 686 yards, beyond which it is scarcely possible to work the mines in this field, owing to the insufficient thickness of the lower coalseams. Geologists have had many rewards of their observation in the fossil remains with which the Lancashire field abounds. There are valuable notes of these published in the Transactions of the Geological Society of Manchester.'

Following the course of Mr. Hull's book, which presents an able and very readable summary of the coal-fields of Great Britain, we proceed to the north, and arrive next at the Cumberland coalfield. It extends about twenty miles in length, and about five in breadth, making an area of twenty-five square miles. There is little probability of the present rate of production (809,546 tons), being available beyond one hundred years.

Having thus reached the northern limit, Mr. Hull takes his readers back to the south, and enters the Warwickshire field, where there is an area of thirty square miles, yielding 335,000 tons a year, and calculated to continue to do the same for 1,244 years.

In the Valley of the Trent the Leicestershire coal-field stretches over an area of fifteen square miles. Fourteen collieries send forth a supply of nearly 700,000 tons of valuable coal; but they are expected to do so for 215 years more. The next field extends over Derbyshire and Yorkshire, and is the largest in England, though

* Hull, p. 94.

not

How long will our Coals last?

61

not so extensive as that in South Wales. Its area of 760 square miles, had 541 collieries in the year 1857, and produced twelve millions and a half tons of coals. There are also 50 blast furnaces producing about 200,000 tons of pig-iron every year. The coals will last 700 years.

Durham and Northumberland contain also a large field on an area of 460 square miles. There are 268 collieries, yielding 15,826,525 tons of coal, and 69 furnaces, producing 347,750 tons of iron. It will last for 466 years at the present rate of consumption. Mr. Hull presents us with the following table, showing the results of his investigations regarding the various fields:

Total area containing coal to a depth of 4,000 feet, 3,711 square miles.

Total available quantity of coal within this depth, 59,109 millions of tons.

Taking the annual produce of England and Wales at 60 millions of tons (the actual produce is 57 millions, but three millions may well be allowed for the increase of future years) the above supply of coal will last for about 1,000 years.

If the above results can only be regarded as approximately accurate-and considering the nature of the inquiry they can scarcely pretend to more-they are at least sufficient to show that for many generations to come, the mineral resources of England are capable of bearing any drain to which they can possibly be subjected either for home or foreign consumption."*

The consumption of the past year (1860) has exceeded any preceding one. The summer was unusually wet and cold, and the winter remarkably severe. London alone required 563,762 tons

* Hull, p. 138.

more

more than in 1859, and the whole country had a proportional increase. Exportation has also required more by 373,576 tons, of which a large share went to China. The total consumption of 1860 has reached the high figure of 75,000,000 of tons, showing an excess of 10 millions of tons over the year 1858, and 40 millions more than in the year 1845. If this increase is to advance as rapidly in succeeding years, and the recent treaty with France is expected to enlarge the demand for coals in that country, we may be sooner exhausted than the thousand years.*

Considerable latitude may well be given to the calculations made regarding the future. Most of them are based upon the consumption at the time of inquiry. Mr. Fordyce mentions a

case:

Mr. Hugh Taylor, in his evidence before a Select Committee of the House of Lords in 1829, based his calculations upon the consumption of coal at 3,500,000 tons per annum, and therefore estimated the duration of the northern coal-field at 1,727 years. This opinion has been adopted by various subsequent writers, who, it would appear, have overlooked the annually increasing demand for the coal of the district. Were Mr. Hugh Taylor giving an opinion at the present time, with a consumption of about 17 million tons per annum instead of 3,500,000, it would only prove his statement to be pretty nearly correct as to the quantity of workable coal in the counties of Durham and Northumberland.'

Mr. Hull and Mr. Fordyce generally state the quantity of workable coal in their calculations, so that we may easily ascertain the probable continuance by a larger divider. The calculations of all, however, show that there is no ground for alarm respecting the supply of English coal for all necessary purposes during several hundred years to come.

Scotland also contains a great coal-field stretching from the Forth of Clyde in Ayrshire on the west to St. Andrew's Bay on the east; and from Glasgow on the north to Dunbar. The extreme length is 94 miles, and the average breadth 25 miles.'

6

Its formation belongs to the carboniferous period, and its base rests upon the old red sandstone. Until the geological survey is published, accurate statistics are wanting; but Mr. Hull estimates the area to be 1,720 miles, and the quantity of coal 153,916 millions of tons (though one authority calculates the quantity at 230,874 millions). The supply produced in 1858 was 8,926,429 tons. Regarding Ireland, our author thus writes:

That Ireland was once covered over two-thirds of its extent by coal-beds is a proposition which we may confidently affirm on geological grounds; but the misfortunes of the sister isle began long before the landing of Strongbow, for Old Father Neptune has swept the coal and coal strata clean into his lap, and left little but a bare floor of limestone instead. In plain words, if we examine a geological map of Ireland we shall find that the carboniferous limestone overspreads its greater part; and as we always find in England that this formation is ultimately surmounted by coal measures, so we may infer there was the same

* A French newspaper stated recently that English coal-fields would be exhausted in twenty-five years!! order

Social Claims of Colliers.

63

order of succession here, before the sea, which more than once overwhelmed the country after the carboniferous epoch, remorselessly swept away the most valuable portion of this system of rocks, with the exception of a few isolated tracts.'

The total produce of Irish mines, in 1858, was 120,630 tons. It is believed that mining can never be carried on at a greater depth than 4,000 feet, on account of the great increase of temperature as we descend, and the great increase of pressure on the human body. Some very valuable observations have been made in the Dukinfield Colliery, Cheshire, during the years 1848-1859, the details of which are published by Mr. Hull. The following table presents a summary which may interest some of our readers:

TABLE showing the theoretical increase of temperature at several depths, the temperature of no variation being taken at 505° Fahr., at a depth of 50 feet from the surface.

Great care should always be taken at these depths to insure a sufficient supply of pure air; but we may hope, as science advances during the intervening years, that much may be done to promote the safe working of the collieries, on which so much of our national greatness and welfare depend. Hitherto far too little has been done to promote the comfort or to insure the safety of the miners. Government inspectors have very frequent complaints to make of the want of attention on the part of masters to their suggestions. Social reformers regret to find so little done by the owners to ameliorate the condition of the colliers. It is true that carelessness causes many accidents, and drunkenness much misery to the mining population; but an improved tone of the miners would do a great deal to remove these occasions of death and woe. There cannot be a doubt that fatal accidents have been fearfully numerous during late years. The condition of the people is deplorable. Those who are the sinews of our national wealth ought to receive much of our philanthropic effort, and be provided with proper instructors, and preserved from the temptations to drink which have so long been the scandal of masters and the curse of the men. The recent Act of Parliament forbidding public-houses to be contiguous to the places where wages are paid is an important

*See Meliora,' No. 6, Article on Death in Coal-pits.'

:

gain but an Act which would permit the miners to abolish the sale of liquors in their localities would be a still greater boon.

The recent tragic explosions at Risca and other places have again aroused attention to the state of colliers; and we sincerely trust that Government will insist on strict and rigorous measures to secure the lives of the lieges employed n mines. During the last five years 856 persons, mostly in the prime of youth, have been killed in coal mines. The lessons of the past should enforce their solemn impressions on the minds of all coal-masters, whose prospects for the future are as bright as in the past, to take a paternal and Christian interest in the physical and moral condition of the men whom they employ. Those seated around the warm fire on a winter's eve, or enjoying the comfortable roast on a dinner table, or illuminated by the glare of gas, should think of the condition of the men who hazard their lives and consume their strength to contribute so largely to the comforts of our English homes. Should not worshippers in church and chapel remember in their prayers the miners whose industry has contributed to their illumination?

ART. V.-Abraham Lincoln: a Biography. London: Sampson Low, Son, and Co.

THE

HE present constitution of the United States is now exactly seventy-two years old. During that time there have been eighteen elections for President, and sixteen individuals have occupied the highest office in the great transatlantic republic. The following are the more important clauses in the Constitution which regulate those elections:

The executive power shall be vested in a President of the United States; he shall hold office for four years, and, together with the Vice-President chosen for the same term, shall be elected thus:

Each State shall appoint, in such manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a number of electors, equal to the whole number of senators and representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress; but no senator or representative, or person holding any office of trust or profit under the United States, shall be appointed an elector.

The electors shall meet in their respective States, and vote by ballot for President and Vice-President, of whom one at least shall not be an inhabitant of the same State with themselves; they shall name in their ballots the person voted for as President, and in distinct ballots the person voted for as Vice-President; and they shall make distinct lists of all persons voted for as President, and of all persons voted for as Vice-President, and of the number of votes for each, which lists they shall sign and certify, and transmit sealed to the seat of Government of the United States, directed to the President of the Senate; the President of the Senate shall, in presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the certificates, and the votes shall then be counted; the person having the greatest number of votes for President shall be President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of electors appointed; and if no person have such majority, then from the persons having the highest numbers not exceeding three on the list of

those