The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1897-05-23
FUEL FOR THE FUTURE
A COMMISSION REPORTS EXHAUs-
TIoN OF COAL IN FEW YEARS.
Vast Energy of the Suns Rays May Be
Utilized or the Power of the Tides
May Be Harnessed.
Philadelphia Inquirer.

When Lord Macauley pictured the Tas-
manian ofthe future as standing on London
bridge and viewing the ruins of faded
civilization doubtless he was not more than
half in earnest. Certainly the majority of
his readers have accepted the forecast as
merely jest. Yet according to certain sci
entifc predictions that have been made re-
Gently there is more than probability that
the grim jest will some day become a sober
reality. The basis of the prediction is the
fact that the worlds supply of coal is
being rapidly exhausted, it being declared
on high engineering authority that with
the exhaustion of it's coal not only will the
power and influence of a nation decline but
even it's existence will be imperiled."
Coal, it is urged, is the foundation stone,
so to speak, of modern civilization. Elimi-
nate coal from the world to-day and what
would become of our civilization to-mor-
row? Nearly all our factories would cease
to work; our ships would lie helpless on the
seas; our railway systems would become
mere avenues for the creeping traffic of
horse cars-in a word, chaos would super
vene in our present social structure. But
what of electricity, what Of compressed air,
what of gas as fuel, you say. All these,
as at present utilized, are but products of
the consumption of coal. and the case
stands to-day it needs no practical reser-
walton that the work of mankind is done
by the energy which is stored in coal and
which is liberated and made available when
coal is burned.
The great civilizations have grown up ex-
clusively in regions where coal is found or
can readily be transported by steam engines
operated by the burning of coal; and the
wheels of that civilization must stop If
this supply of coal were suddenly shut off
from human use.
All this requires only to be pointed out to
be self-evidently recognized as true. But is
it also true that the supply of coal in the
world is threatened with early exhaustion?
AS to this an exact categorical answer is not
so easy. A royal commission in Great Brit
ain wrestled with the problem a few years
ago, instigated thereto by the fears OF MI.
Gladstone and other statesmen, and they
reached the conclusion that II the increase
of consumption of coal that has marked the
past century were to continue undated the
coal supply of Great Britain would be utter
" exhausted iii about q hundred years. But
subsequent estimates have shown that TINS
alarming forecast must be modlhed, for the
sudden increase of consumption OF coal has
been largely due to WattsS development OF
the steam engine toward the close of the
last century and the manufacturing growth
that naturally resulted, and this industrial
consumption of coal will not continue at
the rate of the past century, and the time
when the supply of British coal VIII be ex-
hausted must be extended much beyond
century, even if no direct effort be made
to conserve 1t.
LIMIT TO COAL OUTPUT.
AS dangers that lie more than a century
in the future do not appeal to us with
very personal force, most people appear to
have dismissed the thought of possible ma
tional decay from this source and of late
we have heard very little general comment
on the possible exhaustion Of coal. But a
report recently issued relative to coal beds
that lie nearer home than Great Britain
may serve to arouse renewed interest in the
subject here in America. This report has to
do with the supply of anthracite coal stored
in the Pennsylvania region. Nearly every
one is aware that this region has by far the
largest store of anthracite coal located at
any one place hitherto geolOgically explored
on the globe. When our forbears first recog-
nized its value in the early days of the CEN
fury 6or at first they thought anthracite
coal worthless, because 1t seemed too hard
to burn readily they may vel To- haze aye
area of these beds covers almost five hun
dred square miles. The best estimates call
culate that the amount of coal in these
beds a century ago was about 1000 100000
tons. Yet so enormous have been the drafts
upon it that, it is believed, in twenty-five
years from now full nalf of it will have
been mined, and from that time on the
quantity that can be mined there annually
must steadily decline.
From that time on, in the words of the
report quoted, anthracite will cease to be
the controlling factor III the industrial life
of the eastern part of the United States,
and the glory of the anthracite trade will
have departed" What this implies in the
minds of the engineers who make this es-
innate will best be made clear by another
quotation, which declares that the anthra-
cite fields of Pennsylvania have given
birth and prosperity to countless indus
tries throughout the country and created
wealth beside which the total value of the
coal produced has been as nothing. No
other industry in this broad land, or in all
time, has ever created such magnificent
results in the material prosperity of a
nation as has the anthracite trade of Penn
sylvania. And this trade, be it understood,
is threatened with senility and decay
when? Not centuries hence, but within the
next twenty-five years"
All this is very dreadful; but even the
that the foregoing paragraph contains a
reservation. These things are what might
come to pass if the consumption of coal
were to go on at the present increasing ra-
ito and if no new resources were discov-
cred But these suggested alternatives re-
veal a possible avenue Of escape Need the
rate? And are there not other sources of
energy that can be advantageously util-
lied? These are vastly important ques-
tons. Fortunately they have received at
least tentative answers.
PRODIGALITY OF WASTE.
AS to the need of consuming coal at the
present rate the claims made by the en-
gineers who have given the matter atten-
ton are really startling. The estimates
show that there is a prodigality of waste
in the existing method of handling coal
which is hardly credible. Nature set the
example, to begin with, for it appears that
the existing beds of coal, vast as they are
represent but mere pttance of what they
were in an early geological age. The coal
was made in swamps or forests that were
the Pennsylvania region, the earth has up
heaved, and the seams of coal now form
parts of the mountains. So greatly have
these mountains been denuded by the ac-
ton of the elements in the long ages that
have interviewed that d very large part of
the coal has been worn away and washed
off to sea in the form of sediment. It is
estimated by Professor Leslie that not
more than l per cent. of the original de-
posit remained in the Pennsylvania beds
when man first came to them.
1t would seem as if man had striVen to
rival nature in this lavish waste, for there
is no stage of the process of coal handling,
from mine to furnace, in which there is not
the most reckless disregard of economy
We are told that through bad engineering
and careless working of shafts fully 20 per
cent. of the coal in any region worked re-
mains in the mine or in the form of use
less culm banks or slack; in other words.
that only 80 per cent reaches the consum-
er. Expressed in tangible figures this
means that whereas about COG. 900 600 tons
represented the worlds available output of