A FEW WORDS ABOUT COAL. 311 



per annum, this supply would last the nation 1,250 years. 

 But large as our consumption is, it is not the actual 

 rate which is alarming, but the annual increase of rate. 

 Year by year our consumption is increasing. Ten years 

 ago it was under 84,000,000 tons, so that the average 

 rate of increase during the ten years has been more 

 than 3,500,000 tons. Taking it at only 3,000,000, 

 the supply would not last 280 years. This is easily 

 shown. For the increase at the supposed rate would, 

 in 280 years, be no less than 840,000,000 tons, making 

 a total annual consumption of 960,000,000. The 

 mean between this and the present rate amounts to 

 540,000,000 ; and it will be found that 280 times 540 

 is greater than 150,000. 



- But startling as is the theory that our coal supply 

 will be completely exhausted in less than 280 years a 

 period corresponding to that between the commence- 

 ments of the reigns of Elizabeth and our present 

 Queen there are those who entertain an even more 

 disheartening view. According to them it is not even 

 the rate of increase of the annual consumption which 

 forms the most threatening feature of the case, but 

 the rate at which this rate of increase is itself 

 increasing. 



Thus Mr. Hull, dealing with the coal supply as we 

 have just done, took 1,500,000 tons for the average 

 annual increase (admittedly, however, a low estimate). 

 We have seen that the present average annual increase 

 cannot be set at less than 3,500,000. How if twenty 

 years hence the average annual increase should have 



