['KKSIDKNTIAL AODKKSS SKCTlOX A. 4 1 



of utilisino' the earth's internal heal, the lion. Sir Charles 

 Parsons, in his address, as President of the luigineering Section 

 of tlie British Association for the Advancement of Science, (Hs- 

 cussed the feasibihty of sinking a bore hole 12 miles deep, at 

 which depth the temperature of the rock would probably be over 

 270° F., and down which water would be pumped to return to 

 the earth's surface at a high tem|)erature ; but the idea was 

 abandoned as a hopeless conception, while involving the expendi- 

 ture of millions, even if it were feasible. 



Recently a Johannesbiu-g engineer propounded a scheme in 

 which he proposed to utilise the slight difference of temperature 

 between the surface of the sea and that at a lower depth, due to 

 the sun's radiation, with the object of pumping salt water up- 

 country for irrigation purposes. A paper was actually read 

 before the leading engineering society, but as it was not pub- 

 lished in the proceedings, the idea has been lost to the world at 

 large. 



Power Production from Fuel. — From the figures (|uoted 

 from the first census of power production in 1907, it will be 

 seen that over 91 per cent, of the total power development in the 

 United Kingdom in that year was obtained from coal burned 

 in boilers. The corresponding percentage for the Union of 

 South Africa is 95. 



The anxiety over the supply of this, the most important of 

 all fuels, has led to investigations as to the available sources of 

 supply. The appointment of a Royal Commission on Coal 

 Supplies in 1903 gave recognition to the importance of the sub- 

 ject, but, although the report made it clear that in the future 

 Great Britain would have to generate power otherwise than from 

 coal, or depend on foreign markets, in which case price would 

 seriously handicap her as a manufacturing nation, nothing 

 tangible has resulted, the general feeling being one of apathy. 



During the past year, Dugald Clerk selected the subject of 

 fuel and motive power supplies as the subject of the Thomas 

 Hawksley lecture at the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, 

 and the question has been recently brought forward prominently 

 by Professor Bone, of the Imperial Institute of Technology, in 

 Royal Institution lectures and in papers contributed at the last 

 British Association meeting, and to the Society of Chemical 

 Industry. 



It is a fact, fully recognised, that the industrial and com- 

 mercial position of a country is to a great extent dependent 

 on a cheap fuel supply. It is, therefore, of some interest to 

 consider the coal resources of the world and their distribution. 

 The latest estimate, that of the International Geological Congress 

 of 1913, gives the following, losses in mining being neglected. 



