BRITAIN'S COAL CELLARS. 75 



Dr. Buckland, in one of the Bridgewater Treatises, 

 pointed to the necessity for a careful examination of 

 our coal stores, lest England should drift unawares into 

 what he called ' bituminous bankruptcy.' At that 

 time the quantity of coal raised annually in England 

 amounted to but about forty millions of tons. Ten 

 years later the annual yield had risen to about fifty 

 millions of tons ; and then another warning voice was 

 raised by Dr. Arnold. Ten more years passed, and the 

 annual yield had increased to 83,635,214 tons, when 

 Mr. Hull made the startling announcement that our 

 coal stores would last us but about two centuries, unless 

 some means were adopted to check the lavish expendi- 

 ture of our black diamonds. 



But it was undoubtedly the address of Sir W. Arm- 

 strong to the British Association, in 1863, which first 

 roused the attention of the country to the importance 

 of the subject. 'The greatness of England,' he said>. 

 1 depends much upon the superiority of her coal, in 

 cheapness and quality, over that of other nations. But 

 we have already drawn from our choicest mines a far 

 larger quantity of coal than has been raised in all other 

 parts of the world put together ; and the time is not 

 remote when we shall have to encounter the disad- 

 vantages of increased cost of working and diminished 

 value of produce.' Then he summed up the state of 



gradually dwindle away to nothing, in proportion as our coal and 

 other mines fail.' Mr. Williams also solves in a very summary 

 manner the problem of England's fate after her coal stores shall be 

 exhausted. ' The future inhabitants of this island must live,' says 

 he, ' like its first inhabitants, by fishing and hunting.' 



