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calm ourselves with the thought that the human race has inhabited the 
world for thousands, perhaps millions of years, and still Nature is 
bountiful. But we should remember that not until this century has there 
been any considerable draft upon Nature’s store of energy in the form of 
coal. 
Coal was not discovered in the United States until some two hundred 
years after the discovery of America. It was seventy years after its 
discovery before it was commercially mined. For many years the output 
of the mines was very small. Lately, the disappearance of our forests 
and the astonishing increase in the use of machinery have combined 
to make enormous demands on our mines. The coal used in the United 
States during the past nine years is in amount equal to the total con- 
sumption up to the year 1895. The output of the mines for the year 1912 
was 535 million tons—about five tons for each man, woman, and child in 
the United States. The figures relating to petroleum are just as significant. 
The industry began in 1859, and it was twenty-four years before the entire 
output was equal to that of one year now. The output of the last eight 
years equals all that produced before. 
Natural gas is all but a thing of the past. When scientists foretold the 
speedy exhaustion of the supply and cried out against its criminal waste, 
their cry was unheeded and the waste went on. If all the gas wells had 
been properly cared for, and if all gas had been sold through meters, we 
should have had the blessings of natural gas for a century to come. People 
scoffed at the idea of natural gas failing. So did the newspapers through- 
out the entire gas belt. The introduction of meters was fought by papers 
and patrons, until the finish of natural gas was in sight. Instead of edu- 
‘ating the people to economy and care, the papers incited them to extrava- 
gance and indifference. 
We are now passing through a somewhat similar experience with 
petroleum and coal. Many of our oil fields have been exhausted and 
abandoned. No wonder, when we note that the production of petroleum 
of a single year is a quarter of a billion barrels. This enormous pro- 
duction has been made possible only because of the discovery of new fields 
to replace the exhausted fields. The discovery of new fields can not 
continue indefinitely. Most of our territory has been explored. It is only 
a question of time, and hot a very long time, when oil too will have be- 
come a thing of the past. There will remain but one natural fuel, coal, 
to stand between us and a return to a primitive type of civilization. 
