BRITAIN'S COAL CELLARS. 8 1 



were evidences of the most decided character, warrant- 

 ing the supposition that the annual exhaustion of our 

 coal fields would not at any period much exceed the 

 hundred million tons which it had nearly reached ' (in 

 1866). 



One of the most interesting questions, then, which 

 the Commissioners were called upon to decide was, 

 whether, at least during the period of their labours, the 

 anticipations of Mr. Jevons would be fulfilled or not. 

 It is easy to compare his anticipations with those above 

 quoted; or rather, it is easy to determine whether 

 Mr. Jevons's theory of an increasing increase, or the 

 theory of a uniform average increase, accords best with 

 the experience of the last five years. To make the com- 

 parison fairly we must adopt the figures on which his 

 own estimate was founded. We have seen that he re- 

 jected the annual increase of 2,403,424 deduced from 

 the records of the nine preceding years, and adopted 

 instead an increase of 3 per cent, year by year, taking 

 one year with another. His own calculations gave for 

 this year 1871 a consumption of 118 millions of tons, 

 an enormous increase on the annual consumption when 

 he wrote. According to the view he rejected, the con- 

 sumption for the year 1871 is easily computed, though 

 slightly different results will be obtained, according to 

 the year we choose to count from. The annual increase 

 above-mentioned gives an increase of 24,034,240 tons 

 in ten years, and if we add this amount to the consump- 

 tion in 1861 (83,635,214 tons) we obtain for the year 

 1871 a consumption of 107,669,454 tons. On the other 



G 



