Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1901-03-16
Part That 1t Plays in the Develop
ment of Nations.
COAL SUPPLY is GETTING Low
Water VIII Be More Used in
Years to Come.
INTERESTING SPECULATION

Written 70. The Evening Star by Prof n. s.
Shaler, Dean Of Lawrence Scientific School,
Harvard University.
Although the wisest cannot foresee the
paths on which the conquests of civilization
| in the centuries to come are to be won, it
is clear that these gains are to depend
upon the access which man may have to
various sources Of dynamic power, and to
the various metals by which they may ap-
| ply it to his needs. Two centuries ago
our ancestors had their own bodies and
those Of their domesticated animals at
| their service, and in addition to these
scanty sources of energy little help from
very simple water wheels. from wind
mills and the sails of ships. At the time
of Queen Annes death We may reckon the
| value of this as less than one-tenth of
| what is termed one horse power for each
| English-speaking person. That is to say.
somewhere about the force required to lift
weight of one and a half tons one foot
in minute. At the end of Victoria's reign
the average share of energy at the service
of each person of our race il at least
twenty times as much. or sufficient to lift
that weight in the like time to the height
of twenty feet.
While we cannot really estimate the ad-
vance of man by the amount of energy he
may win to his uses, there is no doubt
that this control of the natural forces pro-
foundly affects the condition of his on
going. 1t has fixed in the past and in the
future is in larger measure to determine
the relative strength of nations. So, too.
it determines the share of life which may
go to education, to enjoyment, to all that
makes for true culture, as well as for that
false culture-luxury. This empire of en-
ergy which he is so swiftly winning will
give civilized man a chance of enlargement
greater than all the gains he has pre-
viouSly made from nature. Moreover, this
gain of man is making. and to be made,
,nt hn a n
weaker peoples. but by hts intellect; by
that control of himself which IL not in
quality directly moral will surely help to
moral and spiritual development.
Energy From the Sun.
In reckoning the future of mans control
of dynamic power We need. first of all, to
see that which he has won or may here
after win if it depends on certain very
simple primary conditions; on the heat of
the sun, on that OF the under-earth and on
the rise and fall of the tides along the
shores Of the oceans. So far, with eXcep-
lions so trifiing as not to be worth noticing.
the energy which has been at mans dis
posal has come from the sun. Whether il
has been gained through the muscles of his
own body or those of his domesticated ami
mails, by means of soils, wind mills or wa
ter wheels, or in a more remote way by
means of fuel, it is but solar energy; the
tiny part Of that energy which, streaming
through the spaces, falls upon our insignih-
cant little sphere TO ne DelQ IN Dy Its at
moSphere and set to diverse kinds of work,
ranging from the winds and currents of the
sea to that which sends the blood through
our veins.
1t has been estimated that each day there
comes upon the surface of the earth from
the sun enough heat to melt 5000 cubic
miles of ice. The greater part of this en-
ergy rebounds at once into the spaces OF
the heavens. What is retained by the at
mosphere brings about the movements of
the winds, and through them the waves
and currents of the sea, and the ascent of
the water into the air. whence 1t is to fall
as rain or snow. So, too, it works in the
plants enabling them to separate carbon
from the oxygen with which 1t is linked in
the gas commonly known as carbonic acid,
and to combine it with the dissolved min
eral substances obtained from the soil and
built into vegetation; thus affording the
food of animals and in rare conditions the
buried woody matter which becomes In
time coal.
Power From Coal.
Although from very remote time p,an
had in small way helped himself to pow
er from the winds and streams and thus in
creased their profit from the sun, 1t was
not until Watts improvements of the steam
engine made an effective machine of what
had long been an interesting toy that they
began to recognize what the natural forces
might do for them-how carbon, in wood
and coal, for ages known as sources OF
heat, could be made to afford power, not
fitfuly, as the winds, or locally. as the
waterfall, but wherever the supply was
needed.
With this discovery of a means by which
carbon could by means of steam be con-
verted into power the buried form of it in
coal quickly became the basis of CONNER
cial success. The rapid advance of the ma
tions Of northern Europe and of the United
States is in great measure to be attributed
to the fact that they had access to extern
sive deposits Of this material. Out of this
store of what has been POLITICALLY termed
fossil sunshine, and is in effect the solar
energy of other ages they have shaped the
industrial success which has become the
foundation OF other greatness.
Distribution of Coal Fields
Recognizing that the economic successes
Of the nineteenth century have been found
ed on the possession of coal fields of good
quality, the world has been pretty thor
oughly searched for such deposits so that
we now know with fair accuracy where
these stores lie. Their position is about as
follows:
Within the tropics it is fairly certain