The Dickinson press., 1890-02-01
THE WORLDS FUEL SUPPLY.
It Is Estimated by n Scientist to BE About
Six Trillion Tons.

It Is Estimated by n Scientist to BE About
Six Trillion 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, We're inorganic-no
more capable of sustaining combustion
or animal life (if We except certain mi
%croscopic forms which decompose car
bonic acid) than granite or slate.
For vegetable life, however, the sup
ply Of food was at its maximum. Vcge-
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 unimaginablc ages of the
c%arboniferous period a gigantic flora fed
on the rich atmosphere, assimilating it's
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 flora, 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
by the atmospllere-is now stored up in
the earth as fuel for the future genera
lions of our race. Future, 1 say, for ire
mendous as the annual 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 children's needs by expanding only
her current income.
In this latter day, however, their de-
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 resources 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 it's elements to their
primeval condition as constituents chief
yof the aerial and aqueous oceans which
surround our globe. 1t follows, then,
that the more rapid the combustion the
richer becomes the atmosphere in it's
power to sustain and force vegetable
growth. If it were possible for that Pc
Rod SO often predicted to arrive, when
the 5000, 0O0, 000, 900 tons, more or less,
of fossil fuels now stored up in the earth's
coal bins shall have been consumed, the
atmosphere will simply have 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 SUMS 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 it's arrival
"S percentage VI SdIDOllC dClu Ill tuO
atmosphere will have passed through
the point possible to the continuance of
human life. If not through human
agency, then how is it to Gomez: Ger
tainly not by any of the processes now
in operation. The 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% convulsion of ma.
ture, hke those dreamed of by John OF
Patmos and Lord Byron, in which s.the
elements shall melt with fervent heat
can undo the work Of the carboniferous
ages-some tremendous upheaval in
which the s~ubterranean stores of fuel
shall at once be laid bare and given owe,
, to the devouring oxygen. Then would
Il new cycle begin, another carboniferous
era, i'll which the s~torehouscs would hf
, again slowly filled for future generations
of Again and again might III,
= cycle return, until tho diminishing en-
> ergy of the sun should fail to uplift tn,
fallen weight, to reorganizc the inor
ganic.-E. p. Jackson in North Amcri
can Review.