198 



♦ KNOW^LEDGE ♦ 



[July 2, 1888. 



equivalent to tay, though it must be remembered that " th " 

 in French is not, as many imagine, precisely equivalent to 

 simple " t " ; the aspirate counts for something, as every one 

 knows who has heard French spoken properly. I say this 

 view is confirmed, not that it is demonstrated, by the 

 French pronunciation. For we must remember that French 

 pronunciation might have changed as much as English. 

 The probabilities are that it would. The only reason we 

 have for trusting rather to the French than to the English 

 spelling is that French spelling is more uniform in signi- 

 ficance, and if we supposed the in the eighteenth centui-y 

 ■was pronounced " tee," we should have to suppose all French 

 ■words .spelled with " e " at that time also pronounced with 

 the " ee " sound, ■which is rather more than unlikely. 



We find farther evidence about the word "tea," because 

 Pope makes it rhyme with '• day." Since Pope was 

 usually careful with his rhyming, insomuch that he would 

 spoil the grammar to keep the rhyme true (writing 

 " begun " for " began, ' or vice virsa, and the like), this is 

 practically decisive. We see here an undoubted case in 

 which the sound " ay " has degenerated in England into the 

 sound " ee." 



(To he concluded.) 



THE DURATION OF OUR COAL SUPPLY. 



By W. M.\ttieu Williams. 



PUEPOSE now to conclude this series by dis- 

 cussing briefly this much-vexed question. My 

 readers must all know that very widely vary- 

 ing estimates have been made, some giving us 

 but another generation or tliereabouts, others 

 a few centuries of further supply. I am about 

 to perpetrate the extreme presumption of 

 differing from both, and asserting that the exhaustion of 

 our coal-fields has already commenced, is rapidly proceeding, 

 and yet will never be completed. 



This apparent parados will solve itself by considering the 

 conditions of the problem. Wo began by working the best 

 and the most easily worked seams, and we did this at a time 

 when most of the coal now in the course of working •was 

 inaccessible, could not be worked at all. The mere removal 

 of the water that accumulates in most of the pits now 

 working would have been practically impossible with the 

 pumps or buckets of our forefathers. If we were now only 

 able to do what they could do, our coal supplies would 

 already have ended. With such appliances coal fuel would 

 be dearer than wood fuel, seeing that we have already worked 

 out the coal that was commercially within their reach. 



From the very beginning, when only the outcrops were 

 grubbed, until the present time we have been gradually 

 working out the richest and most workable of existing 

 seams, and are doing so still ; every year's working increases 

 the difficulty of obtaining the next year's supply, and in- 

 creases its cost, unless improved appliances and means of 

 working effect a proportionate economy. This will go on con- 

 tinuallj' until the cost of obtaining home supplies is so great 

 that it will be cheaper to import foreign coal than to work 

 our own. The American coal-fields contain quite a hundred 

 times as much coal as ours. China probably has nearly as 

 much as America, and so on with other parts of the w'orld. 

 The principal diflerence between our coal wealth and that of 

 other nations is personal rather than physical. It is not 

 our greater supplies underground, but our greater energy in 

 raising thorn ta the surface and using them productively, that 

 has place! us at the head of coal-proluoing and coal-using 

 nations. 



It is true that this general action of first working the 

 best coal is not without exception. There are bits here and 

 there that for exceptional reasans have remained unworked, 

 as where, for instance, the getting of coal would interfere 

 with the game preserves of Sjjuire Mohawk, whos9 superior 

 " culture " and high social rank have rendered it necessary 

 that he sho'ald devote himself to bird-slaughtering and other 

 bloo-l-shedJing amusements. These exceptions do not, how- 

 ever, practically afi'ect the result, owing to the necessary 

 operation of the economic law that the market value of any 

 openly sold commodity is determined by the cast value of 

 the most costly portion which is required to supply the 

 demand. 



As we proceed to deeper and deeper seams, a time will 

 arrive when the cost of vertical transit from seam to surface 

 will exceed the cost of horizontal transit across the Atlantic. 

 In vertical cost I include not merely haulage, but all the cost 

 connected with deep pits and deep workings. But here 

 again we have a complication. Before this exact state of 

 things ai'rives, i.e. when our coal shall cost more to bring it 

 up to the pit bank than to import from other countries, there 

 will be a long period during which it will cost less to bring 

 coal from America to our south-western ports than to raise it 

 from our own coal-fields and carry it to these places by rail. 



People living in such places as Plymouth, Dartmouth, 

 Portsmouth, Brighton, London, <fcc., and paying 'lOs. to 

 30«. per ton for coal, are apt to forget that as much as 

 75 per cent, of these prices are for carriage and middle 

 profits, that the price of coal at the pit's mouth ranges even 

 now from 5.s. to Is. per ton. There are coal seams close to 

 the sea coast in Nova Scotia, which might, if sufficient 

 enterprise existed there, be put on board specially-con- 

 structed ships, and delivered in oar south and west coast 

 towns, or in London, at about 15s. per ton. Even lower 

 estimates have been made, and experience shows that in 

 respect to such carriage the facts commonly fall below the 

 estimates. Some years ago the oil masters of Scotland 

 and North Wales (of whom I was unfortunately one) sent 

 out a special commissioner to learn the lowest cost of import- 

 ing refined petroleum from Pennsylvania to London. His 

 estimate of total cost, including barrels, insurance, &c., was 

 Is. to Is. id. per gallon. Allowing price at the wells 

 to be Qd. per gallon, we felt safe to compete at Is. ^d. 

 I have just finished a barrel of the best water-white 

 kerosine which I purchased last autumn retail in a London 

 suburb at (S\d. per gallon. This includes prime cost, 

 carriage, barrel, insurance, and two profits. I have no 

 doubt that when the carriage of coal across the Atlantic 

 to London becomes fully davelopad, the freight will be 

 reduced to is. or 5s. per ton, or about half the present 

 railway rates and truck hire from Newcastle or Durham 

 or Derbyshire. 



I also believe that the reason why this has not already 

 occurred is merely an artificial one. It is simply because 

 the capitalists of the United States and Canada imagine 

 that a new country can better nourish its infant industries 

 by excluding foreign products (even those that feed the 

 infants) than by developing their own natural resources by 

 the free action of natural selection. 



But even when the extreme condition is fulfilled, when 

 the average depth of the Newcastle pits is, say, 3,000 feet 

 greater than that of the American pits near the coast, and 

 our vertical difficulties equal their horizontal dilBculties of 

 3,000 miles, we shall not even then cease working our coal, 

 for by this time the Americans will be exhausting their 

 most favourably situated and richest seams, and then both 

 they and we -will be proceeding towards the more and more 

 costly, until at last wood fuel will be cheaper than coal at 

 even moderate distances from the mouths of coal pits. 



