THE LIMITS OF OUR COAL SUPPLY. 209 



coal cost more than peat, or wood, or other fuel, then and 

 therefore will coal become quite inaccessible to us, and this 

 will probably be the case long before we are stopped by the 

 physical obstacles of depth, density, or high temperature. 



As this rise of value must of necessity be gradual, and as 

 the superseding of British by foreign coal, as well as the 

 final disuse of coal, will gradually converge from the cir- 

 cumference towards the centres of supply, from places dis- 

 tant from coal-pits to those close around them, we shall 

 have ample warning and opportunity for preparing for the 

 social changes that the loss of the raw material will enforce. 



The above-quoted writer, in the "Edinburgh Review," 

 expresses in strong and unqualified terms an idea that is 

 very prevalent in England and abroad: he says that, "The 

 course of manufacturing supremacy of wealth and of power 

 is directed by coal. That wonderful mineral, of the pos- 

 session of which Englishmen have thought so little but 

 wasted so much, is the modern realization of the philoso- 

 pher's stone. This chemical result of primeval vegetation 

 has been the means by its abundance of raising this coun- 

 try to an unprecedented height of prosperity, and its de- 

 ficiency might have the effect of lowering it to slow de- 

 cline." 



* * " It raises up one people and casts down another; 

 it makes railways on land and paths on the sea. It founds 

 cities, it rules nations, it changes the course of empires." 



The fallacy of these customary attributions of social po- 

 tency to mere mineral matter is amply shown by facts that 

 are previously stated by the reviewer himself. He tells us 

 that "the coal-fields of China extend over an area of 400,- 

 000 square miles; and a good geologist, Baron Von Richt- 

 hofen, has reported that he himself has found a coal-field 

 in the province of Hunau covering an area of 21,700 square 

 miles, which is nearly double our British coal area of 12,000 

 square miles. In the province of Shansi, the Baron dis- 

 covered nearly 30,000 square miles of coal with unrivaled 

 facilities for mining. But all these vast coal-fields, capable 

 of supplying the whole world for some thousands of years 

 to come, are lying un worked." 



If "the course of manufacturing supremacy of wealth 



