The farmer and mechanic. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 18??-19??, 1911-05-09

yfaif Cent a TOn-HOW the Public
Coal Lands Are Being Prospected
and yalued-Uncle Sam. Coal Mer-
cnant-The Proceeds to Reclaim the
Ds~sert-Our Enormous Fuel Con-
sumption-How Long Will the Coal
Tast.-The New Discoveries Of the
We-t-Idgnite Briquettes and the
f,ailroads-A Talk With the Di-
rector Of the Geological Survey
About Some Interesting Operations
of Unc!e Sam. Patriarch.
fropyright, 1911, by Frank G.. Car
penter.)
WASHINGTON, D. c.
have spent this afternoon at the
geological survey talking with DR..
George Otis Smith. the director, as to
his new Investigations Of Uncle Sam s
coal fields His figures are so big that
they dazzle the mind. The area>of the
known beds has been almost doubled
within the past ten years, and it is
now known to cover a territory twelve
times as large as the States Of Ohio,
Virginia or Kentucky, or about one
sixth that OF the United States proper
Some Of the new and undevelOped
and even eighty feet thick, and one
single bed contains five or six billion
tons In the whole United States. ac-
coraing to the estimate of DR.. Camp
bell made for the survey. the coal
In the beds is more than 3, 200 billions
Of tons and Of this more than 1000
billion tons are accessible and easily
worked Dr. Smith says that our
workable coal fields are four times
as large as those Of all of the country
combined and that our tonnage is
twice as great as that estimated for
the rest Of the world
Uncle Sans Big Coal Wall.
You have heard Of the great Chinese
wall [ have seen it at several diff
ferent places. 1t is about forty feet
hgn, and perhaps twenty feet wild 9
at the top. It begins at the Yellow
sea and runs across China for dis
tance Of 1900 miles. That wall would
be a grain Of sand or at best a single
brick compared with the mighty wall
that might be made Of Uncle Sans
coal. We shall estimate the amount
at only 1000 billions of tons, taking
only the work able and accessible coal
into the calculation. If that coal were
out Of the ground and laid up in solid
masonry it would make a wall one
third OF a mile high and mile thick
reaching from New York to San Fran
cisco. Or suppose it be 600 feet thick
which is more than three times the
width OF Pennsylvania avenue in
Washington or that of any Of the
largest streets Of our Cities and make
the wall three times as high as the
Washington Monument. We shall be-
gin the construction at Boston and ex-
tend the wall westward. How far do
You think it would go? Would it
reach across the Pacific? Yes 1t
would extend from Boston to Shanghai
an China, and from there over the
whole of Asia and Europe, until. 1t
met the Atlantic ocean on the west
coast of France. 1t would go on clear
across that ocean to Boston, and there
would be hundreds Of millions Of tons
yet to spare.
But the Chinese wall was a useless
attempt at defense to shut out the Tar
tars. This is a great industrial wall,
which means the keeping our fac
tories busy and our houses warm for
three or four thousand years Of the
ages to come.
This estimate of how long our coal
will last is not Dr. Smiths. I tried
to get him to tell but he hedged.
Said he:
"As reported by Mr.. Parker. the
survey coal statistician, the total pro-
duction Of coal in the United States
up TO GATE has been over eight bill
hon tons. which, with the waste in
soiEed in mining, represents an ex-
nahstion of about twelve billion tons.
ihls is less than one-half Of one per
cent Of the coal now known to exist.
and it leaves us more than 80 per cent
or our workable coal in the ground.
iiae amount, as I have said, is about
TWO Thousand billion tens, which
means four thousand times the amount
We are now using each year, plus so
per cent added as waste
"A Million and u Half Tons Daily.
How much coal do we use every