174 THE OLD COAL-MEASURES. 



the enormous amount of 100,000,000, and is still steadily 

 increasing ! At that time steam-power had not come into 

 general use at our collieries, and horses, men, "boys, and 

 women toiled indiscriminately under ground and above 

 ground. Shallow workings, open inclines, and stair pits 

 were then the order of the day, with little profit to the 

 employer, and a world of discomfort to the employed. 

 Now our coal-works, though still demanding improvement, 

 are models of systematic engineering in comparison, and 

 are year after year conducted on a more enlarged scale and 

 on more strictly scientific principles, at the same time that 

 they have been placed under a humane and generous system 

 of official surveillance. 



Looking, we say, at the progress that has been made 

 during the last thirty years, at the increasing demand and 

 pressure upon our coal-supplies, and at the general improve- 

 ment in mechanical appliances that is incessantly taking 

 place, we may rely on increased national interest in all that 

 relates to our coal-fields, to new inventions for lessening 

 the toil and danger incident upon mining, and to a still 

 further utilisation of the substances that belong to the 

 Carboniferous system, and which are now only partially 

 employed or altogether neglected. But while we look 

 hopefully forward to this utilisation, we cannot lose sight 

 of the fact that our coal-fields we mean the British coal- 

 fields have a limited area, and that at the present rate of 

 consumption a time must come when every available seam 

 will be exhausted. How far distant this time may be our 

 best practical authorities are by no means agreed, some 

 restricting it to 300 or 400, some to 600, and others again 

 to 1000 years.* It is true that by more economical methods 



* Those interested in the probable duration of our coal-supplies may 

 consult Hull's ' Coal-fields of Great Britain/ the most compendious, as 

 well as the most readable, work on the subject to which we can refer them. 



