OF BARON HUMBOLDT. 205 



condition of Europe will convince us that an 

 unequal position in the universal competition, 

 or a continued vacillation, will necessarily 

 diminish, and ultimately annihilate the wealth 

 of a nation ; for in the destinies of nations, as 

 in the operations of nature, there is -according 

 to the ingenious observation of Gothe " Apho- 

 ristisches uber die Natur " " in the acts of 

 formation and of motion no delay ; and a curse 

 attached to all cessation." Only an earnest 

 revival of the study of chemistry, mathematics, 

 and natural history, will arrest the threatening 

 danger. It will be impossible for man to influ- 

 ence nature, to appropriate to his use any of 

 her powers, if ignorant of the laws. Here the 



Armstrongs remarks in his address to the British Asso- 

 ciation, at Newcastle, in 1863, concerning the duration of 

 the Coalfields of England. The statistics collected by Mr. 

 Hunt, of the Mining Record Office, show that at the end of 

 1861 the quantity of coal raised in the United Kingdom had 

 reached the enormous total of 86 millions of tons, and that 

 the average annual increase in the eight preceding years 

 amounted to 2f millions of tons. Assuming 4,000 feet as 

 the greatest depth at which mining operations can be carried 

 on, the entire quantity of available coal existing in these 

 islands has been calculated to be about 80,000 millions of 

 tons, which, at the present rate of consumption, would be 

 exhausted in 930 years; but, with a continued yearly 

 increase of 2f millions of tons, would only last 212 years." 

 See the excellent article on this subject, Daily Telegraph, 

 London; Thursday, January 11, 1866. 



