The Sun.
London, England, 1863-09-15 00:00:00

THE FALSE ALARM ABOUT COAL.

THE LATE DEAN BUCKLAND OF WESTMINSTER, Some
years ago, wrote as follows :—" This highly-favoured
country has been enriched with mineral treasures in her
strata of coal, incomparably more precious than mines of
silver or of gold. From these sustaining sources of indus-
try and wealth let us help ourselves abundantly, and libe-
rally enjoy these precious gifts of the Creator; but let us
not abuse them, or by wilful neglect and wanton waste de-
stroy the foundation of the industry of future generations.
A farther consideration of national policy should prompt us
to consider how far the duty of supporting our commercial
interests and of husbanding the resources of posterity should
permit us to allow any extensive exportation of coal from a
densely-peopled manufacturing country like our own, a
large proportion of whose present wealth is founded on
machinery which cm be kept in action only by the produce
of our natzve coal mines, and whose prosperity can never
survive the period of their exhaustion."s s

Mr. RORERT HUNT'S note to this runs thus :
" All calculations on the probable duration of our coal-fields
have been founded on the very erroneous data which sup-
poses that not more than 36,000,000 of coals are raised
annually. We know that more than sixty six millions of
coals are now annually produced, and the demands upon
our resources are rapidly increasing. The last paragraph has
therefore far greater force at the present time than it had
at the time it was written."

Sir WILLIAM ARMSTRONG quotes Mr. Hunt as showing
"that at the end of 1861 the quantity of coal raised in the
United Kingdom had reached the enormou, total of eighty-
six millions of tons, and that the average annual increase
of the eight preceding years amounted to 21 millions of
tons."

Dr. BUCXLAND'S son (Mr. Frank Buckland, late Assis-
tant-Surgeon 2d Life Guards, now of The Field), observes
that, if his father's remarks were important in 1836 (when
his " Bridgewater Treatise was first published), and of
" greater force" in 1858, how much mote must they be
worthy of most serious consideration in 1863 ; and, he adds,
" 1 trust the memory of this distinguished and practical
will be honoured by attention to his warning voice, geologist
though he himself is no longer among us."
Mr. EDWARD HULL, of the Geological Survey—writing
from Manchester very recently, remarks, however, in direct
contradiction to all this :—Much misapprehension appears
to have been occasioned by that part of Sir W. Armstrong's
address at the opening of the British Association meeting
at Newcastle regarding the resources of our coalfields. It
seems in many quarters to have been supported that when the
president spoke of the probable exhaustion in about two cen-
turies, he was referring to the coal supply of the whole king-
dom ; whereas he distinctly limited the remark to the coalfield
of Durham and Northumberland, in the immediate neigh-
bourhood. As regards the supply from all our coalfields,
the time for exhaustion demanded was much more ex-
tended. This every one will allow who is acquainted with
the mineral structure of the country, When this subject
was brought prominently before Parliament during the
debates on the commercial treaty with France, I entered
into a series of investigations, which were afterwards pub-
lished in a work on the British coalfields, which, I fear (to
use Coleridge's expression) is to the public generally "as
good as a manuscript." Nevertheless, I believe the results
there stated are incontrsvertible. Adopting the limit of
depth at 4,000 ft., I found that there was enough workable
coal to last, at the rate of consumption for that year (about
71,000,000 tons), for nearly 1,000 years, and, even if the
consumption should ultimately reach 100,000,000 of tons,
that supply could be maintained for 700 or 800 years. But
there are many persons well qualified to give an opinion
on the subject who maintain that there is no reason
why the most valuable seams should not be followed
to even greater depths than 4,000 feet. I adopted that
depth on considerations connected with increase of tempe-
rature and pressure, but it would be highly presump-
tuous in any one to assert that these physical obstacles
cannot be overcome. Already a depth of nearly 1,000
yards has been reached in a Belgian colliery, and coal is
now being extracted from depths of 700 and 800 yards in
Lancashire. Even with the vertical limit of 4,000 ft. I have
since found reason to believe that the estimate I arrived at
in the case of the South Wales coalfield was rather under
than over the truth. In that coal basin alone, with an area
of 906 square miles, I calculated that the rate of consump-
tion for 1859, of 9i millions of tons, could be maintained
for 1,600 years ; but it is only right to state that Mr H.
Vivian, M.P., in a pamphlet published by him in 1861 con•
troverts this view, and arrives at the conclusion " that
South Wales could supply all England with coal for 500
years, and her own consumption for 5,000." From this it
will appear that whatever error there may be in my estimate
it is not one of exaggeration. As regards the absolute
quantity of mineral fuel in this island, it may be considered
as practically inexhaustible. The seams of coal outcrop in
our coalfields, and descend under the Permian and Triassic
formations to depths exceeding 10,000 ft. The question of
the available supply is therefore one depending on the
rapidity of production and the limit of depth. For the
present, however, and for generations to come, the commer-
cial and maritime supremacy of Great Britain is in no
danger of being impaired for any want of coal.

A PHILOSOPHIC TAVERN KEEPER.—" What an
old-world scene, watered by the winding brook and
nursed by all the hills I That miniature old church, or
chapel, with its tiny bell-turret ; that small public-house
by its side, with no other sign or name than that of the
Chapel .house; those grey old homes up the receding nook,
with one other little inn ; a school-house in which the town-
trained schoolmaster seemed scarcely at home, and where
one wee kept, urchin seemed as if he would have been more
at home with Shenstone's Schoolmistress; and the many-
gabled house of more patrician style, that would have been
a cottage almost anywhere else in the world, but which hare,
by comparison, might boast of the character of a mansion :
how vividly the whole picture continues to live in the mind
as at this moment I look there again for it while writing
And then, the inside of that little public-house, kept by Isaac
Cooper, who was also a cattle-dealer and grazier, farming
500 acres on the mountain that overlooked his lowly home.
A character long to be remembered by us all was Isaac
Cooper. Sitting in his parlour with its low mullioned win-
dow, getting our refreshment, we had him in to talk with
and give us the information with which bis shrewd and
practical mind was well and wonderfully stored. And while
we were so sitting, his daughter, a sniart and comely young
woman, who had evidently seen beyond the valley, came
into the room, and began to draw a curtain across one part
of the window. Now, up in that country, all women and
girls are, without the slightest offence, called wenches, So
Isaac, turning his face from the fire towards the window,
asked in a somewhat brisk tone, What's th' wench about r
Why (was her reply), I'm just drawing the curtain a little
Way ; I was afraid th' draft might hurt the gentlemen, as
there's a broken quaril,' meaning a broken square. This
done,
thefather's eye still followed the daughter as she re-
tired from the room, when in a tone and mann.er about
midway between
soliloquy and colloquy, he continued
to talk Ah, that wench' how's been upsetting me, hou
has I I went to a cattle-fair t'other dey ; an' I'd no sooner
gone than hou mat gee g ,
among a ruck o wenches;gad gadding
away
yy toth
eCyh attp‘evl F t
t to
Liverpool vi' an'
a special treys ;-en
when I got back, ivery-
thing ith' house had gone topsy-turvy : I niver sey'd
things sich a way sin' fir' day I wor born 1 Mr. Marsland
said I ought to be very severe with her for 't, and punish
her well. Somebody or other said I ought to pu' her ears
for her; but (continued th, e old man in a more kindly and
relaxing tone) I havens' spocken a word to her about it
yet; for, yo see 'n, it doesna' do to get into a passion in a
hurry ' Grand old Isaac it were well worth while to have
found out thy little bcstelrie in Edale, were it only to learn
that lesson; nor do I think the kind daughter, who was so
considerate about the draft through the broken quaril,'
will ever be the worse for thy gentleness and forbearance."
Dr. Spencer Hail's Days in Lei bys,74:,)c.
THE RUSSIAN AUTOCRAT is said to have added
150,000 men to his army by calling out 4S regiments from
the reserve. Of these, '24 regiments are to be placed at the
disposal of General Mouravicil, to be sent to Odessa, and
I four to Kid;