Savannah morning news. [volume] (Savannah) 1868-1887, 1882-06-13
THE MODERN KING COAL.
Some Interesting Facts About Ifs
Produetfon-HoVv Many Pyramids
the Annual Output In PennsyI-
vania would build.
PHILADELPHIA Record.

Philadelphia Record.
All childhood is familiar with the
"Old King Cole" who was a merry old
soul, and who contented himself with a
very mild form of dissipation in company
with his flddlers three. The greater King
Coal who has become the master of
almost the whole material world, is a
more real, a more important and a more
absolute monarch. His reign, it is true,
has not been a long one; his first preten-
sions to the sceptre and the crown Origi-
mated with Watt, and were confirmed
by Stephenson and Fulton, 50 that
a century has not elapsed since he as
cenGed the throne. But fancy what con
fusion would result if there should be a
sudden stoppage of the coal supply
throughout the world 1t is also true
that King Coal is not the absolute neces.
sity that he once was. A rival monarch
somewhat threatens his supremacy, not
only as light riDger, but as power
creator; but whatever may be the future
of electricity, it has not yet dispensed
with the use of coal, nor even perceptibly
diminished its consumption.
1t is difficult to realize what figures
mean when they rise into millions of
tons, but by making some simple com
parsons of the amount of coal taken
from the earth in this country alone with
objects whose size can be readily appre-
ciated, an idea Of the grandeur of our
latter day King Goals proportions can
be obtained
The total output of all kinds of coal
in the United States for 1881, amounted
IN Mound n1,t,, INown ~ re 100 000 4Ooe ~
which Pennsylvania produced AS, 500, 600
tons, or nearly two thirds. Let this i'm
| mense total be supposed to be piled up in
the square in which the City Hall is stu
ated, at the junction of Broad and Mar
ket streets. Striking an average between
anthracite and bituminous coal as to
bulk, and assuming that there is at
the junction of those streets plot OF
land five hundred feet square, this
space could be inclOsed like
square bin to height of one hundred
and seventy feet and filed fifty times
without WHOLLY exhausting the amount
of coal that was mined in this country
last year. The great pyramids of Egypt
are regarded as miracles of industry and
wasted labor. The largest of all. at
Gizeh, which took 100000 men almost a
half century to build contains very
nearly 10000 900 cubic feet of stone
Yet if all the coal mined in this country
in 1881 had been piled in pyramids of
similar size there would have been
more than twenty six of these
! tremendous monuments of coal
completed. or one every two
weeks Again, suppose that a square
column had been made of coal, allowing
it base 90 feet square, there would be
more than ZOO such columns, 500 feet
high, rising to a level with the projected
top Of the Washington monument in
Washington. The great Chinese wall is
believed to be 400 miles long, 20 feet
high and "a feet thick, containing g.
54S, 160,0 600 cubic feet. If the coal of
1881 had been put into such a wall, it
would have extended from Philadelphia
to Chicago. and have had enough left
over to surround both cities.
These are astonishing figures, yet,
great as they are, production of coal in
Great Britain during the same year was
more than double what it was in this
country, and everywhere it is constantly
increasing. When the great outputs of
France, Belgium, Germany and other
fields all over the world are added in,
the transfer of such vast amount of fuel
from solid to gaseous form would seem
to imply a considerable change in the
relative density of the earth's outer shell ;
and it would be interesting matter to
investigate whether such changes
have any perceptible influence on the
earth's rotation. The question of the
exhaustion of the supply does not now
agitate the minds of either philosophers
or practical men, since it is generally
conceded that, ages before the supply
can become seriously diminished even,
there will be other sources of power
more readily and economically available
1t is probable that coal will long continue
to be used for many purposes, and that
its consumption for long time will be
likely to increase rather than decrease;
but it will no longer be absolutely neces-
sary to depend upon it, and to that ex-
tent the modern King Coal has been de,
throned.