OUR WANING COAL SUPPLY 



By GEN, A. WARNER 



EVERY man of intellig^ence and any 

 scientific knowledge must agree 

 with the President in the supreme 

 importance of preserving our natural 

 resources ; and this importance was last 

 spring emphasized by perhaps the most 

 celebrated gathering ever assembled at 

 the White House. It seems to be con- 

 ceded that first in importance of our 

 natural resources to be preserved are 

 our forests. It is, however, to the ex- 

 tent and rapid exhaustion of our coal 

 fields that the writer wishes especially 

 to direct attention. Many years of the 

 earlier life of the writer were spent in 

 geological examinations in the Appa- 

 lachian coal fields, from northern Penn- 

 sylvania through West Virginia, Ohio, 

 Kentucky, Tennessee, and Alabama, 

 following the line of the earlier investi- 

 gations of H. D. Rogers in Pennsyl- 

 vania and William B. Rogers in Vir- 

 ginia. The great reports of these two 

 early geologists have been the founda- 

 tion of all later surveys. Later the 

 writer became interested in different 

 sections of this greatest of coal fields, 

 by extensive drillings and shaft open- 

 ings, and early came to the conclusion 

 that the number and extent of the work- 

 able beds of coal in nearly the whole of 

 the Appalachian field had been greatly 

 over-estimated. 



Later examinations by eminent geol- 

 ogists confirm this view. Prof. I. C. 

 White, state geologist of West Virgin- 

 ia, in his excellent report on the coal 

 deposits of that state, cuts down pre- 

 vious estimates of the area of workable 

 coal from 15000 square miles to pos- 

 sibly less than 10,000, and limits the 

 area of' the greatest and most valuable 

 beds of coal perhaps in the United 

 States, namely, the great Pocahontas 

 and New River beds, to 600 to 700 

 542 



square miles. Again, the extensive 

 drillings that have been made in recent 

 years show that in reality the valuable 

 coal beds throughout the most of the 

 Appalachian field are actually contained 

 within a marginal belt from twenty to 

 thirty miles wide on the eastern and 

 western sides of the field in the states 

 of Kentucky, West Virginia, Ohio, and 

 the western side of Pennsylvania, a 

 large elliptical area within these limits 

 containing no workable seams of coal. 

 The western side of the field in Pennsyl- 

 vania embraces the Monongahela and 

 Conemaugh series, and contains, in the 

 Laurel Hill and Chestnut Ridge syn- 

 clinals, perhaps an exception to this 

 structural limitation of workable coals. 

 But it is nevertheless estimated that the 

 soft coking coals contained in these 

 synclinals, and westward in the Pitts- 

 burg seam, will be practically exhausted 

 in twenty-five to thirty years ; certainly 

 in less than fifty years at the present 

 rate of consumption. 



If the Appalachian basin is viewed 

 longitudinally any geological map will 

 show that it narrows down as it ex- 

 tends into Tennessee and Alabama, and 

 in Tennessee is diveded by an anti- 

 clinal ridge formed by an uplift of 

 lower limestones, which divides the coal 

 area into two or more basins and limits 

 the area of coal. 



The question of the thickness of the 

 coal measures and the number of work- 

 able beds is of the greatest importance. 

 If a vertical section could be made that 

 would expose to view the thickness of 

 each of the five great divisions agreed 

 upon by the later geologists — the Dun- 

 kard on top, the Monongahela, carrying 

 the great Pittsburg seam, the Cone- 

 maugh, the Allegheny, and the Potts- 

 ville. down to the floor of the whole 



