304 



FORESTRY AND IRRIGATION 



June 



000,000,000 tons of coal forming our origi- 

 nal heritage will be gone before the end of 

 the next century, say two hundred years 

 hence. 



To each generation the ultimate disap- 

 pearance of coal is of less concern than 

 current prices. With the working out of 

 seams and fields, plants and transportation 

 facilities are removed or abandoned, and 

 other losses are incurred ; and the cost of 

 these in the end increases prices. Already 

 this is felt ; it is estimated that by reason 

 of the progressive exhaustion of American 

 fields, coal consumers are to-day paying on 

 an average 10 per cent or 15 per cent more 

 than would be necessary if the supply were 

 unlimited — and the advance must continue 

 with each decade as the supply lessens. 



Still more wasteful than our process of 

 mining are our methods of consuming coal. 

 Of all the coal burned in the power plants 

 of the country not more than from 5 per 

 cent to 10 per cent of the potential energy 

 is actually used ; the remaining 90 per cent 

 to 95 per cent is absorbed in rendering the 

 smaller fraction available in actual work. 

 In direct heating the loss is less, but in 

 electric heating and lighting it is much 

 more — indeed in ordinary electric light 

 plants hardly one-fifth of i per cent, one 

 five-hundredth part, of the energy of the 

 coal is actually utilized. There is at pres- 

 ent no known remedy for this. These 

 wastes are not increasing; through 

 the development of gas-producers, internal 

 combustion engines, and steam turbines they 

 are constantly decreasing ; yet not so rapid- 

 ly as to affect seriously the estimates of in- 

 crease in coal consumption. We are not 

 without hope, however, of discoveries that 

 may yet enable man to convert potential 

 into mechanical energy direct, avoiding this 

 fearful waste. If that day ever comes, our 

 coal supply might be considered unending. 



The same spirit of recklessness that leads 

 to waste in mining and in the consumption 

 of coal leads to unnecessary risk of human 

 life. During the year 1907 in the United 

 States the killed and wounded in coal min- 

 ing operations exceeded 9,000. The danger 

 to life and limb in the mines is increasing 

 far more rapidly than production, because 

 gas becomes more abundant and the work 

 of rescue more difficult as the mines extend 

 deeper or farther from the entrance. 



When the Republic was started in 1776 

 little iron was used. Each family was con- 

 tent with a few score pounds in the form 

 of implements, utensils, and weapons, so 

 that the average annual consumption was 

 but a few pounds per capita. In 1907 alone 

 the production of iron ore in the United 

 States was 53,000,000 tons, or more than 

 1,200 pounds for each man, woman and 

 child of our 88,000,000 population. And the 

 production is steadily increasing. 



The latest trustworthy estimates of our 

 present stock of iron ore are: for the Lake 

 Superior district, about 1,500,000,000 tons; 



for the Southern district (including Ala- 

 bama, Georgia, Tennessee, and Virginia), 

 about 2,500,000,000 tons ; and for the rest 

 of the United States, 5,000,000,000 to 7,000,- 

 000,000 tons — making an aggregate of about 

 10,000,000,000 tons. 



Our highest-grade ore is that of the Lake 

 Superior district, which yields about four- 

 fifths of the current production. In 1905 

 its yield was over 33,000,000 tons, in 1906 

 some 38,000,000 tons, and in 1907 nearly 

 44,000,000 tons ; by the end of the present 

 decade it will average 50,000,000 tons or 

 more. Even without further increase, the 

 known supply will be exhausted before 

 1940. It is true that there are frequent re- 

 ports of new ore bodies in this district; but 

 on the other hand, the old bodies generally 

 run far below the estimates. 



The total production of iron ores in the 

 United States up to 1890 was some 275,- 

 000,000 tons ; in the next ten years it was 

 nearly 200,000,000 ; and in the seven years 

 from 1901 to 1907 more than 270,000,000 

 tons were produced, or nearly as much as 

 the total for the first century of our his- 

 tory. The aggregate production to date, 

 750,000,000 tons, is about one-thirteenth of 

 the estimated original supply. At the pres- 

 ent rate of increase (doubling each decade) 

 the production in 1918 will exceed 100,000,- 

 000 tons, by 1928 200,000,000 tons, and by 

 1938 it will be over 400,000,000 tons — i. e., 

 in that single year, which many of us may 

 expect to see, an amount approximating the 

 entire production in the United States up 

 to the close of last year. By that date 

 about half of the original supply will be 

 gone, and only the lower grades of ore will 

 remain ; and all the ore now deemed work- 

 able will be used long before the end of the 

 present century. 



Compared with Britain or Germany, our 

 only two important competitors in iron and 

 steel, we were until the past few years in 

 much more favorable condition. Britain 

 then was apparently within twenty years of 

 her end as an important steel producer, 

 owing to exhaustion of her ore supplies. 

 Recent discoveries in Northern Sweden 

 have given her a new lease and also bene- 

 fited Germany, both of which are already 

 drawing part of their supply from the new 

 mines, which are said to be by far the most 

 extensive ever known. The ores are of ex- 

 cellent quality. It is not improbable that 

 ere long we also in the Eastern States shall 

 be compelled to rely upon these deposits 

 for part of our supply. 



While both waste and risk of life in the 

 mining and reduction of iron ore are much 

 less relatively than in coal mining, the ad- 

 vances in price due to progressive exhaus- 

 tion are large. An example is found in 

 Iron Mountain, ]\Iissouri, which forty-odd 

 years ago was declared, even by experts, to 

 be inexhaustible; the entire deposit is gone 

 — work abandoned. The additional cost of 

 ore due to progressive exhaustion of the 



