Burlington weekly free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1866-1928, 1873-05-16
From the Pittsburg Commercial.
The Coal supply.
How LONG WILL IT HOLD OUT?

ltNh LDNb VII Al NUN WI
In the Biographies and school books that
were used a generation ago, it was stated
that I'm the hills opposite Pittsburg were
inerhauStiJle supplies Of coal, and it has
been the custom to speak of the coal re-
sources Of Western Pennsylvania as likewise
'inexhaustible, just as. few years ago,
it was usual to speak of the coal supplies of
England. Yet the coal in the hills opposite
Pittsburg has been completely exhausted
this many years, and the recent rapid ad-
vance in the price of coal in England has
demonstrated the fallacy of the ''inexhaust-
ible' theory, there. England has been
mining coal at the rate of 1875 ,000, 900 tons
yearly-a rate, which, at no very distant
date. must lead to total exhaustion. 1t will
not do, therefore to lay the hattering unc-
ton 10 our souls that our supplies are IN
capable of exhaustion. For the present
they may seem boundless and limitless; but
we are using them up steadily, and at
rate which must, within a calculable limit,
tell upon the sum total, however large we
may fancy that TO be.
The census statistics show that in 1870
PENNSYLVANIA mined and sent to market y,
500 900 tons of bituminous coal, all Of
which came from the Western part of the
state, and the census is not regarded as
SHOWING Inc lulA amount - Ui4utu- Us
figures are approximate, only, and it Is
therefore safe to assume that we are now
mining at the rate of 900 900 tons year.
A ton Is, in round numbers, thirty bushels;
and as the calculation of coal quantities Is
better understood here by bushels than by
tons, we will, for the better understanding
Of the problem; reduce the tons to bushels.
The total yearly product of bitumincus coal
in Western Pennsylvania Is therefore 21O,-
O00, 900 bushels. An acre of coal Is various
" understood to yield from so 600 to lO0,-
600 bushels: but fix it at the highest figure
and say that an acre vii, average 10000
bushels, and this yearly drain will be seen
to exhaust ,, 700 acres. This in ten years
will amount to y 600 acres, and in one
hundred years TO 27e, 900 acres; but it is
not supposable that trade which seems
only in its infancy will stop at the figure
now attained. In ten years from now from
present appearances, the product of 1873
will be doubled, and in less than thirty
years quadrupled 80 that, probably by the
opening of the twentieth century, we shall
be using up ten thousand acres of coal
yearly.
The area of thoicoal field Of Western Penn
sylvania is probably less than 5000 square
miles. This is a large area, and no one now
Nv III lHtA I'LL uN0lt IL RtllE tAAdANttA
in his day or that of his children or grand
children; bat stin, if we are now using up
FIVE square miles yearly, and 90 on steadily
increasing to ten, twenty and forty square
miles yearly, it is easy to figure out
the exact limit Of the supply. Even now,
the cost of bringing 1t TO market Is 80 much
increased that we may safely conclude the
days of cheap coal are over. We shall
never again see 1t as cheap as it has been.
As the river hills become exhausted, and the
tramways have TO be extended back, and
still further back. and timber grows scarcer
and scarcer and labor dearer, the cost Of
placing i. on the market must steadily in
crease.
The sum oft all, then, is that while we
have plenty of coal to last Us for hundreds
Of years 10 come, the supply i not mex
hanstiblc; and as the near-at-hand supplies
are being rapidly used up, the more distant
supplies viii cost more TO deliver. There
is no danger of a coal famine for 4 long time
to come; but there is. on the other hand,
no prospect Of cheaper supplies in the fu
ture.