Nov. 14, 1884] 



♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦ 



399 



annual increase settled down to some constant or nearly 

 constant sum, such as (say) £200. The prosperity of such 

 a merchant could hardly be regarded as failing ; for his 

 gains, large at first, would have grown larger and larger 

 throughout, and in the final stage they would still be grow- 

 ing larger and larger from year to year. So it would be in 

 the case of those uses of coal which are already known. 

 Already large, they would grow larger and larger (on our 

 supposition, which we believe to be in accordance with all 

 experience) ; they would not throughout the change fail to 

 increase; and, at the last, they would settle down to a 

 nearly constant rate, not of consumption, but of increase of 

 consumption. 



So soon as such processes begin to operate freely (and, 

 as we have said, they are already operating to some extent) 

 they will reduce the rate at which the whole consumption 

 is increasing. Operating against them would be the pro- 

 gress of invention, by which fresh uses for coal are continu- 

 ally springing up. Yet this cause would not act solely to 

 increase the consumption ; for many of the inventions 

 which require directly or indirectly the employment of 

 coal, operate to remove or to reduce some other cause also 

 requiring the consumption of coal. Nor is it at all unlikely 

 that before long inventions will be so directed as to reduce 

 in a very marked manner the consumption of coal in 

 certain departments of trade and commerce. 



Now, if this view of the future is just, we can no longer 

 apply a percentage of increase after Mr. Jevons's method, 

 except for so moderate a number of years that the monstrous 

 annual consumption indicated for 1950 (for example) is no 

 longer in question. For the next ten, twenty, or even 

 thirty years, it is not vitally important whether we take 

 Mr. .^evons's method or Mr. Hull's. There would, indeed, 

 be a considerable difference in the annual consumjjtion at 

 the end of the ten, twenty, or thirty years ; but still the 

 main difference would be that a certain consumption would 

 be reached so many years sooner in one case than in the 

 other.* 



Thus, taking 120 millions of tons as the anniial 

 consumption in 1S72, and 326 as the rate of increase per 

 cent, per annum, the annual consumption in 1882 would 

 have been estimated at 1-59 millions of tons if the actual 

 increase remained constant, and 165 millions of tons if the 

 percentage of increase remained constant ; at the end of 

 twenty years from 1872 the numbers would be respectively 

 185 millions and 227i millions ; at the end of thirty years 

 from 1872 they would be 218 millions and 314 millions. 

 The difference in the last two cases is no doubt consider- 

 able ; yet it is seen that the consumption in 1892, on Mr. 

 Jevons's hypothesis is the same as the consumption in 1905 

 on the other ; and it can readily be calculated that the con- 

 sumption in 1902, on Mr. Jevons's hypothesis, is the 

 same as the consumption in 1922 on tie other. The advance 



* In my original paper, which appeared in 1872, and has, of 

 conrse, been modified above, I wrote as follows : — " It mil be very 

 soon in our power to decide whether one or other hypothesis be 

 correct ; nor will it be long before it will be possible to decide 

 whether the hypothesis advocated by myself is not sonnder than 

 either. I venture to predict that before the year 1890 the per- 

 centage of increase will be markedly below Mr. Jevons's estimate ; 

 and that before the year 1900 the actual increase will be below its 

 present value (3,500,000 tons)." The consumption appears now (in 

 1884, and judging from the records for 1883) to be about 1C4 millions 

 of tons, which is considerably below Mr. Jevons's estimate, and shows 

 that the first part of my prediction was sound ; whether the latter 

 part will be confirmed remains to be seen. As the average increase 

 in the 11 years, from 1872 to 1883, has been nearly 4,000,000 tons, 

 it is evident that when due account is taken of the reserved diminu- 

 tion of the rate (not the amount) of increase, the tendency of 

 events is towards the fulfilment of this part, too, of my antici- 

 pations. 



to that rate twenty years earlier or later is a matter of very 

 little importance compared with the question whether Mr. 

 Jevons's view will be justified during after years. 



If, on the contrary, as I believe, the present increasing 

 rate of increase will be ch.mged long before even thirty 

 years have passed into a decreasing rate of increase — if 

 such a consumption as 250 millions of tons is not reached 

 until long after the time when even the present rate of 

 change, continued uniformly, would have brought it — we 

 need not fear that the exhaustion of our coalfields is so 

 near at hand as either Mr. Jevons or Mr. Hull has 

 supposed. And we may recognise this further cause of 

 hope in such a view, that, whereas the prospect of the 

 exhaustion of our coal within 150 or 200 or even 300 years 

 would imply little less than the prospect of approaching 

 national bankruptcy, the continuance of our supply for 800 

 or 1,000 years would sufiice to put ns on a secure and stable 

 footing. During all these years the power and wealth of 

 the nation would be increasing, so far as the cause in ques- 

 tion is concerned (since our assumptions imply a continufd 

 increase in the consumption of coal) ; inventions and dis- 

 coveries would have multiplied on all sides ; means might 

 even have been devised for accomplishing, without coal, 

 the greater part of the work which coal now does for us ; 

 and at the worst we should be in a position to obtain 

 abundant supplies of coal from other countries. It is not, 

 however, too much to say that, even if these hopes were 

 not justified, 1,000 years of prosperity is a future which 

 this nation might contemplate with satisfaction. What- 

 ever our pride in our country — in her past history, her 

 present condition, or her future prospects — we are to 

 remember that it is not given to any nation to endure for 

 ever. As the most powerful nations of antiquity passed 

 into decadence, so one day must it happen with this country, 

 though we, her children, may well believe that that day is 

 far off, and that the might and prosperity of this nation 

 will rather undergo a change of form than a complete 

 destruction — not perishing, but being merged in the might 

 and the prosperity of one or other of the nations which 

 have sprung from ours. 



A LECTUKE was delivered on Tuesday at the Royal Victoria Hall, 

 by the Kev. W. Tuckwell, Rector of Stockton Rugby ; the subject 

 being a Bank Holiday on the Hills. The lecturer supposed his 

 hearers to accompany him to some hill within reach of London by 

 excursion train, and to spend the holiday upon it. He led them 

 through roads and fields fringed and carpeted with summer flowers 

 to the hillside, resting for a while beside a rustic home to look at 

 the cottager's bees, and hear from him a delightful history of their 

 culture. Past bogs blue with forget-me-not, yellow with asphodel, 

 gleaming with sun-dew; through a wood where the squirrel and the 

 wood-pigeon sat aloft, the golden-rod and foxglove waved below; 

 along the hillside with its bracken, its whortle-berries, its heather, 

 and its staghorn moss; the party climbed to the top, sat down 

 to enjoy the sights and sounds, measured the height ascended 

 by means of an aneroid barometer, discussed the geological 

 formation of the hill itself, read chapters of English history 

 in the view from its summit. In the walk which followed 

 the flowers all around, pimpernel and St. Johnswort, and 

 Lady's Bedstraw and club - moss, were made to yield their 

 legends and associations ; the viper, the burying beetle, the 

 gossamer, the wasp's nest, suggested curious talk; a pond' 

 revealed mysteries of the stickleback's nest, and the dragon- 

 fly's transformations, and the transparent water-flea, and the 

 house-building ililicerta ; a stone quarry exhibited Ammonites and 

 Saurian remains and Coprolites of a million years ago, while flint 

 implements from a gravel-pit told their tale of earliest man. 

 Finally, a farmhouse gathered the excursionists to tea and country 

 fare, and the happy day found its end, with certainty that its 

 thoughts and feelings would penetrate the dust and heat of town. 

 life like a refreshing breeze from the hills themselves, a reminder 

 of pleasures past, a provocative to renew them on many a future 

 holiday. 



