Our Annual Coal Drama 



Each winter we have a coal shortage. 

 What causes the trouble? Can we cure it? 



By Lloyd E. Darling 



In the March number Popular Science 

 Monthly discussed the taking over of the 

 railroads by the Government, and the prob- 

 able effect of the action on the coal situation. 

 This article deals particularly with the coal 

 shortage itself, its causes and effects. — Ekiitor 



Actors in Our Annual Coal Drama — 

 Parti. 



These are the actors who go across our stage 

 each winter. Many figures you will doubtlessly 

 recognize. Up in the corner the sturdy miner 

 goeth to work. Sometimes he comes back 

 injured. Likewise do the many trainmen and 

 others who have to do with the carrying of the 

 coal to the consumer. They have been especial- 

 ly battered up this winter. These are typefied 

 by the lower figure. In the center, the coal 

 operator himself. He may be plump and 

 prosperous as shown, or wan and lean, depending 

 on how business goes. Beside him is one of his 

 trusty business-getters. And beyond them are 

 our railroads, harassed, and upset by such devils 

 as congestion, car-shortage and freezing weather 



WE'VE had a coal shortage this 

 winter — a severe coal shortage. 

 Railroads have been tied up, 

 people have suffered, legal holidays have 

 been declared, troubles of all kinds have 

 developed. Certainly all our troubles are 

 not due to the war alone. We have had 

 coal shortages before, and no wars to 

 bother us. 



How do we get ourselves into such a 

 predicament every winter? Who or 

 what is to blame? Is there a way out? 



On the opposite page we present a 

 diagram recently prepared by Chester C. 

 Gilbert, Curator of Mineral Technology, 

 United States National Museum. It 

 indicates comparative coal supplies of all 

 regions in the world. This diagram 

 demonstrates one point: No matter how 



many "coal-shortages" we have now, or 

 will have in the future, they are not and 

 cannot be due to a lack of coal in the 

 ground. 



Geologists estimate that the Nation 

 has between four and five trillion tons of 

 coal within its boundaries yet unmined. 

 What then is the reason it is so hard to 

 get coal into a man's bins? Diamonds 

 have hardly been more "scarce" than has 

 coal. 



The map on page 535 is interesting. It 

 shows the hard and the soft-coal areas 

 of this country. If you are a householder, 

 what kind of coal was it you used this 

 winter? Was it hard coal ; or Pocahontas, 

 perhaps? If hard coal, look where it had 

 to come from ! Way up in eastern 

 Pennsylvania. If Pocahontas, it was 



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