80 LIGHT SCIENCE FOR LEISURE HOURS. 



so important, indeed, that the nation might have looked 

 forward to the results of the Commission much as a 

 patient would await the physician's report of the result 

 of a stethoscopic examination. The power of the nation 

 residing for the nonce at least in her coal, the en- 

 forced consumption of coal at a rate which cannot be 

 maintained (from whatever cause), means to all intents 

 and purposes the decline and approaching demise of 

 England's power as a nation. Furthermore, apart from 

 all inquiries such as the Commissioners undertook to 

 make, the mere statement of the successive annual 

 yields was to be looked upon as of vital interest, pre- 

 cisely as the progressive waste of a consumptive patient's 

 strength and substance suggests even more serious 

 apprehensions than the opinion of the physician. 



I have said that many eminent authorities held 

 that the rate of increase assumed by Mr. Jevons would 

 not actually prevail. But some went farther, and ques- 

 tioned whether the average annual arithmetical increase 

 of the lately passed years would continue even for the 

 next few years after the publication of Mr. Jevons's 

 work. ' Such a continued increase as that, which has 

 taken place during the last five years,' wrote an excel- 

 lent practical authority, ' cannot continue for the next 

 ten years,' far less, therefore, that increasing rate of 

 increase which Mr. Jevons had assumed. The same 

 writer went farther even than this. For, after pointing 

 out that the exportation of coal would probably be soon 

 reduced, rather than undergo, as during the past, a 

 steady increase, he added that <on every side there 



