, 1889-12-17
THE WORLDS FUEL SUPPLY.
II Is EstimHted by a Scientist to BE About
Six TrilIiou Tons.

Six TrIniou. Tons.
Time was when the carbon and hydro
gen, which form practically the whole
of our supply of fuel and the principal
part of our food, were inorganic-no
more capable of sustaining combustion
or animal life (f we except certain mi
croscopic forms whichSdecompose car
bonic acid than granite o. slate.
For vegetable life, however, the sup
ply of food was at its maximum. Vege-
table life came, generated in some I'M
known way by the solar energy which
poured through the atmosphere and the
heat energy which penetrated the earth's
crust from within.
Through the unimaginable ages of the
carboniferous period a gigantic flora fed
on the rich atmosphere, assimilating its
carbon and hydrogen, and thereby set
ting free its oxygen, until it could sus-
tain its animal life, at first in the lowest,
then successfully in the higher forms.
This gigantic fora, with its enormous
potential energy of chemical separation
from oxygen-an energy derived chiefly
from the solar energy of that period,
easily admitted and tenaciously retained
oy h atmosphere-is now stored up in
he earth as fuel for the future genera
lions of our race. Future, / say, for tire
mendous as the annua consumption of
coal, petroleum and natural gas for a
generation has been. we have as yet only
begun upon the great store. Hitherto
Mother Earth has been able to supply
her childreu's needs by expanding only
her current income.
Tn thia lattar dav bovuavar thar do
mands have multiplied so rapidly that
she has been obliged to draw upon the
capital stored up during the long ages of
her maidenhood. How long will that
capital last at the terrible rate at which
we have begun to squander it? Is her
children's prodigality actually making
her poorer? or has she the power to null
lily the effects of their extravaganza?
and are her diminishing due
only to the decreasing energy of her
natural supporter and protector, the
sun? However prodigal man may be in
his use of earth's treasures, he can never
annihilate one atom of her substance or
transport it beyond her domain.
In his "wasteful' consumption of fuel
he is only restoring its elements to their
primeval condition as constituents chief
ly of the aerial n aqueous oceans which
surround our globe. 1t follows, then,
that the more rapid the combustion the
richer becomes the atmosphere in its
power to sustain and force vegetable
growth. If it were possible for that pc
Rod 50 often predicted to arrive, when
the 5000, 900, 900 900 tons, more or less,
of fossil fuels now stored up in the earth's
,An1 htNa ahall Ia uA lAaR 4A-1r,--I A.
atmosphere will simply nave returned to
its primeval condition-that which pre-
coded the carboniferous period.
The only essential difference, there
fore, which will mark the two remote
geologic periods, the past and future,
will be due to whatever reduction will
have taken place in the suns energy.
But whether that condition is destined
ever to return to earth or not, one thing
is certain: 1t will not be through human
instrumentality. Ages before its arrival
the percentage of carbonic acid in the
atmosphere will have passed through
the point possible to the continuance of
human life. If not through human
agency, then how is it to come? Ger.
tainly not by n of the processes now
in operation. h percentage of carbonic
acid in the atmosphere does not ma
terially vary.
This fact means simply that some
where on the earth's surface vegetation
is taking up the enormous surplus of
carbonic acid constantly pouring forth
from our millions of furnaces, and thus
restoring it to the form of available fuel.
The weight that is constantly sinking is
thus being constantly relifted by the
daily conversion Of solar to vital energy.
Only some stupendous CONFUSION of ma
ture, like those dreamed of by John of
Patmos and Lord Byron, in which ''the
elements shall melt with fervent heat u
can undo the work of the carboniferous
ages-some tremendous upheaval in
which the subterranean stores of fuel
shall at once be laid bare and given over
to the devouring oxygen. Then would
a new cycle begin, another carboniferous
era, in which the storehouses would be
again slowly filled for future generations
of men. Again and again might the
cycle return, until the diminishing en-
ergy of the SUI should fail to uplift the
fallen weight, to reorganize. the inor.
ganic.-E. p. jackson in North Ameri.
can Review.