THE WORLD'S NEED OF COAL 189 



the iron industry and tlie railroads made possible the trans- 

 portation of coal for longer distance during all parts of the 

 year that the production of coal, and bituminous coal more 

 particularly, received its chief impetus. Although in Great 

 Britain the use of coal for iron smelting dates back to the 

 eighteenth century, the use of charcoal having been com- 

 pletely discarded at the beginning of the nineteenth century, 

 the only fuel used in American blast furnaces until about 

 1840 was charcoal. This was quite natural, as with the 

 al)undance of large forests the charcoal used for the manu- 

 facture was relatively cheap, and transportation of charcoal 

 was less difficult than that of coal. The introduction of 

 anthracite and bituminous coal in the manufacture of pig 

 iron created a revolution in the whole iron industrj^ of the 

 country. Facilities for the manufacture of iron were in- 

 creased; districts which had been virtually closed to the 

 manufacture because of a local scarcity of charcoal were now 

 opened to it; production increased on a large scale, causing 

 cheapening of prices and growing consumption. 



Of the two forms of mineral fuel, anthracite was the 

 first to be largely used in the iron industry, and it was only 

 at a comparatively recent period that the relative popu- 

 larity of the two kinds of fuel for blast furnace used has 

 been reversed. 



The year 1855 marks the passing of charcoal by anthracite 

 in the production of pig iron, in the year 1869 the use of 

 bituminous coal overtakes that of charcoal, and in 1875, 

 also that of anthracite. The decline of anthracite as an 

 agent in the production of iron becomes still more apparent 

 if it is borne in mind that * 'some of the iron, classed as having 

 been produced with anthracite and bituminous coal, respec- 

 tively, was produced with a mixture of this fuel, the quantity 

 so produced being represented mainly in the anthracite 

 column. But even on its face the figures show incontestably 

 that the anthracite coal has been superseded by the cheaper 

 material. Thus the share of anthracite, which in 1880 was 

 42 per cent, has fallen to only a little over 10 per cent. 



The other great factor which caused the remarkable 

 growth of the bituminous coal industry was the rapid growth 



