BRITAIN'S COAL CELLARS. pi 



consumption of 350 millions of tons. In that case there 

 would still remain coal enough to supply the country 

 for 320 years at the same tremendous rate. In all r 

 on these suppositions, 820 years would be provided for. 

 These would be years of commercial activity far ex- 

 ceeding that of our own day in fact, they would be 

 years during which Britain would be accumulating 

 wealth at a rate so enormous that at the end of the 

 era she would be not wholly unprovided with the means 

 of supporting her existence as a nation, apart from all 

 reference to her mineral stores. It is, indeed, utterly 

 inconceivable, I think, that Great Britain and her 

 people will ever be able to progress at the rate implied 

 by these suggestions. To conceive of Great Britain as 

 arriving at ruin within a thousand years by the over- 

 rapid exhaustion of her coal stores, is, in fact, equivalent 

 to supposing that she will attain in the interval to a 

 wholly unprecedented I had almost said a wholly 

 incredible degree of wealth and power. 



As regards the evidence which has been adduced 

 respecting the extent of the available coal supply, it is 

 to be remarked that, on the whole, the result cannot be 

 regarded as unfavourable. The more sanguine views 

 entertained five or six years ago have not, indeed,, 

 been fully justified. Yet our coal supply has been 

 shown to be enormous, even when considered with 

 reference to the continually increasing exhaustion. 



But it must be admitted that the question of the 

 depth to which our coal mines may be conveniently or 

 even possibly worked, has an unpleasantly doubtful 



