The daily morning journal and courier., 1902-06-14

to sell more coal to the countries which l import 1t than all the rest of the world together. It supplies far more eoaling stations than any other country. It Is
 the only land that does an enormous | business in the exportation of coal. | The business of selling coal abroad is
 usually very profitable and one reason
 why England surpasses all competitors
 in this business is because she has spec ial facilities for it. Her coal is so near
 the sea that England Is able to ship it less expensively than any other export ing nation. Owing to our more exten- siye use of coal mining machinery, a
 great deal of our coal at the pit mouth
 does not cost so much as British coal when raised to the surface, but by the
 time we ship our coal on the ocean it
 usually costs more than British coal.
 Another reason why usually, when
 the price of European coal is not abnor-
 mally high, we cannot compete with
 British exports is because our sea car
 riage to the continent of Europe, which
 is by far the grandest importer, is very
 much longer than that of England.
 Thus England has special advantages
 for the export coal trade and she im-
 proves them to the utmost, in spite of
 the fact that economists are again be-
 ginning to reassert. that the present
 century will undoubtedly see the end
 of her coal resources.
 The most interesting contribution that
 has been made for a long time to the question of the worlds future coal sup YNIx i. hot ot,zf of Gottingen has just published, pr. Fischer has collected with much care all the best attainable data as to the coal resources of the entire world. Such work as this can be regarded only as a striving to reach conclusions that are worthy of consideration for the time being and as satisfactory as the present condition of our knowledge will | permit. They are likely to be very ! much modified when we have more | light on the question, just as the prog | nostications thirty years ago with re- gard to the worlds coal resources need ed amending when we came to under stand how enormously China is able to to the supplies. But though we must continue to regard such est- illulC0 Co tllOSt IletIt ny LII, II ipNilCl eio tentative they are not only interesting, but important as painstaking, critical and able summaries of our existing and of the conclusions which It seems to justify.
 Briefly summing up the estimates which Dr. Fischer has based upon his studies, he concludes that the attaina- ole coal supply of Germany amounts, n round numbers, to one hundred and sixty thousand million tons; that of Great Britain to 81,500, 000,000 tons; that # Austria Hungary, Belgium and France together to 17,O00 Ooo, 00D tons. The coal deposits of Russia are still so ' title known that Dr. Fischer does not -ttempt to estimate the attainable out ' 'ut though he says that the resources re undoubtedly enormous, particularly { n the southern regions from the gov T rnment of Poltava eastward into the l. and of the Don Cossacks I
 He estimates that the coal resources f the whole of America are at least c K hundred and eighty-f four million c ons. All our later information with ] I agard to China has tended to confirm II le conclusions reached by Won Rich I lofen as to the enormous wealth in t pal of that empire. There is as yet no t eason to believe that this very careful is