BRITAIN'S COAL CELLARS. 89 



At present it does not seem possible to arrive at any 

 definite conclusions respecting the probable consumption 

 of coal in years to come. The range of observation is 

 not sufficiently extended. It seems clear, indeed, that 

 the epoch is not near at hand when the present law of 

 increase will be modified. This is shown by the agree- 

 ment of the observed results during the past five years 

 with the anticipations of Mr. Jevons. It would be 

 altogether unsafe to predict that the yearly consumption 

 will not rise to 150 or 200 or even 250 millions of tons 

 per annum, or to point to any definite stage at which 

 the present increasing rate of increase will be changed 

 first into uniform (or arithmetical) increase, and thence 

 into a decreasing rate of increase. But it appears to 

 me that no question can exist that these changes will 

 take place. We might even go farther, and regard it 

 as all but certain that the time will come when there 

 will be no annual increase. Nay, unless the history of 

 this country is to differ from the history of all other 

 nations which have attained to great power, the time 

 might be expected to arrive when there will be, year by 

 year, a slow diminution in the commercial activity of 

 Britain, and a corresponding diminution in the exhaus- 

 tion of her coal stores. There is room for an amazing 

 increase in Britain's power and greatness, room also for 

 an unprecedented continuance of these attributes, while 

 yet the coal stores of the country remain well supplied. 



Let us conceive, for instance, that the greatest annual 

 consumption of coal during the future years of Eng- 

 land's existence as a great nation, should be set at three 



