THE LIMITS OF OUR COAL SUPPLY. 195 



coal-mining enterprises that hare been launched during the 

 last six months. If we continue as we are now proceeding, 

 a practical and permanent eoal famine will be upon us 

 within the lifetime of many of the present generation. By 

 such a famine, I do not mean an actual exhaustion of our 

 coal seams (which will never be effected), but such a scar- 

 city and rise of prices as shall annihilate the most voracious 

 of our coal-consuming industries, those which depend upon 

 abundance of cheap coal, such as the manufacture of pig- 

 iron, etc.* 



The action of increasing prices has been but lightly con- 

 sidered hitherto, though its importance is paramount in 

 determining the limits of our coal supply; I even venture 

 so far as to affirm that it is not the depth of the coal seams, 

 not the increasing temperature nor pressure as we proceed 

 downwards, nor even thinness of seam, that will practically 

 determine the limits of British coal-getting, but simply the 

 price per ton at the pit's month. 



In proof of this, I may appeal to actual practice. Mr. 

 Hull and others have estimated the working limit of thin- 

 ness at two feet, and agree in regarding thinner seams than 

 this as unworkable. This is unquestionably correct BO 

 long as the getting is effected in the usual manner. A col- 

 lier cannot lie down and hew a much thinner seam than 

 this, if he works as colliers work at present. But the lead 

 and copper miners succeed in working far thinner lode* , 

 even down to the thickness of a few inches, and the gold- 

 digger crushes the hardest component of the earth's crust 

 to obtain barely visible grains of the precious metal. This 

 extension of effort is entirely determined by market value. 

 At a sufficiently high price the two-feet limit of coal-get- 

 ting would vanish, and the collier would work after the 

 manner of the lead-miner. 



*At the present time (1882) we are receiving the excessive supplies 

 consequent upon the opening of new pits that, under the stimulus of 

 high prices, were in the course erf sinking when the above was writ- 

 ten. Hence the present low prices. Presently the annual increase 

 of consumption will overtake this increased supply, and (mother 

 " coal famine" like that then existing will follow. This is not far 

 distant. 



