Northern Wisconsin advertiser. [volume] (Wabeno, Wis.) 1898-1925, 1903-01-01
HARD COAL.
Enough Remaining to Last About 100
Years.


Years.
If the people of the eastern United
States must have hard coal and cannot
possibly put up with soft coal, what is
to become of their descendants in the
third and fourth generations? For the
supply of anthracite is strictly limited
so much so, indeed, that engineers
have veptured to compute it in pretty
exact figures. Three different author
tiles conversant with the anthracite
situation in it's geological aspects have
at different times in the past 10 years
published estimates of the exteuL of
the supply still to be mined. DR..
Peter ROBBERS, in his book on tn an
thracite industry, presents these COM
putations, after making deduction of
the amount of coal mined from the
time of making the estimates to the
time of the publication of the book in
August, 1901. Assuming an average
annual production of 60,000,000 tons
from 1901 on, the life of the hard coal
supply is thus varioGsly estimated
Tons to Years
Authority. be mined. duration.
Joseph S. Harris 1924 ,404 1882
A. D. w. Smith 6,512,167,703 1883
William Griffiths 1882, 6S3,n6S 1854
The total amount mined from 1920
to 1900, it may be stated in passing,
has been 1,197, 7O6,1S1 tons, of from
one-fourth to ore-ffth CT the amount
yet to oe mined.
1t will be seen that the various esti-
mates are not very far apart. They
agree in limiting the life of the supply
within e period of 10 years, and the
average estimate places it below 100
years. And this on the assumption
that production and consumption do
not exceed 60,000,000 tons annually.
But production even now is beginning
to exceed 55,000,000 tons a year, and
is evidently to go on increasing with
the growth of population in the east
esn United States. Hence a present
prospect that the Pennsylvania anthra-
cite supply-the only supply so far
uncovered in this country and quite
possible the only considerable supply
in existence in the United States-will
have been exhausted at the end of 70
years from date or within the lifetime
of many persons now living.
Our children or our children's
children will thus sometime have to
learn how to use bituminous coal and
how to tolerate the dit and other
discomforts attending it- employment.
The soft coal supply is vastly greater
and it's extent iS beyond estimate; but
there is also limitation here, and the
wit of nan must soon, in the stretch
of years, set itself at work upon the
problem CT discovering substitute
sources CT er Ell gy to prevent the world
from freezing and tc koSp its machin-
cry going. Whittier inventive genius
will direct its course is a question.
Necessity, that mother of invention.
has so far been wanting as to have
failed as yet to develop any distinct
clews. The absence of coal on the
Pacific slope of the United States has
served to sharpen wits for the discov-
cry of other sources of heat and power
beyond perhaps any other section of
the civilized world; and the extent to
which the Quest was being carried
could be sen in the building at one
point of an immense radiator to gather
in and put to mechanical use the fall
ing ay2 CT he sun, and at another
PORT in the sttSn pit to convert into
disable energy the Using and falling of
the waters of the adjacent ocean.
But the discovery Of oil has for the
present relieved California of the want
that formerly pressed sorely upon the
industrial ambitions of her people
and We shall not hear more probably
of radiator and sea experiments.
AS time passes, however, the forces
of the earth and air in their natural
manifestations will come into increas-
ing use: and n the waterfall. the
wind, the motions of the sea, and quite
likely in the discovery of means of
drawing off and storing up the cleo
tricity which pervades the atmos-
pheTe, the human race will be able to
perpetuate its existence in increasing
numbers on the earth long after the
last lump of coal has been taken from
IL