72 THE COAL QUESTION. 



would have the weight of our large national debt and very few 

 resources to meet it. This book was referred to by statesmen in 

 the debates of 1866 as a reason why we should diminish our debt, 

 and the house agreed to a small measure of this kind. 



It is not wonderful that Prof. Jevons' book should have 

 attracted attention, for if he be right in his argument, there lies 

 before us a stagnation of our trade, distress and emigration of our 

 people, and such a rise of prices that we may be undersold in 

 what is now our chief production, coal and iron. The report of 

 the Coal Commission may then be looked on as giving us data by 

 which we may examine the question. These data are of priceless 

 value when we consider the importance of the issue at stake. 



The greatest labour has been that of estimating the amount of 

 coal in existing coal-fields. The coal-fields of the United Kingdom 

 are thirty-seven in number — these are all separately calculated. 

 Indeed, the labour of estimating the number of tons in a simple 

 coal-field, like that of S. Wales is very considerable. 



It is necessary to know the outcrop of each seam, in order to 

 calculate its area: of course, owing to denudation, this is extremely 

 irregular; a seam may be found on the N. side of the basin and 

 not on the S. : again, it may thin out and be twice as thick on 

 one side, and therefore give twice as many tons per acre : then 

 the depth to which it goes must be ascertained, and the area of 

 the same seam, above two thousand feet, has been calculated 

 separately from the area over which it would be found plunging 

 from two thousand to four thousand feet deep, or more. This is 

 a very important element, for unless the seam is a good one there 

 is very little chance of its ever being worked over two thousand 

 feet deep. "WTien the thickness and the area has been found, it is 

 easily translated into tons, for a cubic yard of coal weighs roughly 

 about a ton : so that a yard seam extending over a square mile 

 would yield three million ninety-seven thousand six hundi^ed tons, 

 or in other words, a coal seam contains, roughly, a million tons 

 per foot thick per square mile — of course a large amount of this 

 is unavailable, being lost by faults, or barriers against water, or 



