ADDRESS. 69 



of the colonies, but to save the forests of England from being- 

 converted into charcoal. And to show what danger awaited 

 those forests, the petition shows that the making of iron in Eng- 

 land has risen suddenly to the enormous product of twelve thou- 

 sand tons per annum. About the same time a man was hanged 

 in London for poisoning the common air by burning coal in his 

 smith shop. But last year England exported four millions of 

 tons of iron, and made it by burning the same coal. And yet 

 the iron ore and coal of our country exceed those of England as 

 much as our territory is larger than hers. 



Before the coal and iron of England were developed, Elizabeth 

 had fewer subjects than Governor Morgan has constituents, and 

 they were worse provisioned than the present people of England. 



We are making good progress in our production of iron. We 

 must soon produce iron for South America. Every year we are 

 bringing the coal and iron nearer together, and nearer to the sea 

 by new railroads ; and e\ery year we are insuring that great 

 civilization which nothing but a disturbance of this Union can 

 check. We are doing this, because the coal field of the world is 

 ours, and the iron ore of the world is ours. Nothing which re- 

 quires a yearly reproduction from the soil can ever be the ruling 

 product of a nation, which has inexhaustible mineral resources. 

 Men plant wheat and cotton, but God planted the coal fields and 

 laid up an inexhaustible store for human use ; and the same is 

 true of iron, when it lies near the coal field. Corn and cotton 

 are princely : Egypt and England had corn ; Brazil and India 

 had cotton- but what were they without iron ? and what is iron 

 ore without the coal ? Deprive England of coal, and she would 

 fall back on the times of Elizabeth, for her iron ore would be 

 worthless. But coal is power — concentrated power — available 

 power — power to reduce the metals, and power to adapt and 

 employ the metals for endless purposes of civilization. Coal is 

 king. 



The earliest inventors had little for suggestion but their dire 

 necessities^ they had few resources, and no tools. Their great 

 task was the contrivance of artificial climates. Every movement 

 northward impelled them to new contrivances of this kind. The 

 bower, the simplest garment, the fire kindled in the open air, the 

 tent, the coat of sheep's skin, have ripened into all the useful and 

 elegant appliances of clothing, housing, warming and cooling of 

 our winter and summer. 



