NATURE 



357 



THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 19, 1885 



A SCIENTIFIC VIEW OF THE COAL 

 QUESTION 

 T T is well known that our stock of coal is not an infinite 

 ■*■ quantity, and cannot last an infinite period of time. 

 Different authorities, and those who have investigated the 

 subject, including a Royal Commission, have assigned 

 different lengths of time during which our supply is likely 

 to last ; and, according to the most reliable authorities, 

 it cannot be much less than 100 nor much more than 

 250 years. 



Our abundant store of coal, and its application to in- 

 dustrial purposes, has been one of the largest causes of 

 our wealth and progress. The value of coal for those 

 purposes depends essentially upon the fact that it is com- 

 bustible, and evolves a large amount of heat in burning, 

 and that this heat can be set free at any time and be 

 readily converted into mechanical, chemical, electrical, 

 and other forms of power. As an illustration of the great 

 amount of energy contained in coal, it is well known to 

 scientific men that each piece of it contains sufficient 

 stored-up power to lift its own weight 2300 miles in 

 height, or 2300 times its own weight a mile high. The only- 

 other common natural substances to be compared with it 

 in this respect are wood and petroleum, and our stores of 

 these are very small. It is by the expenditure of the 

 energy contained in coal that comparatively valueless 

 iron ore is converted into valuable iron. 



It has not been by the mere existence of large quan- 

 tities of coal in this country, nor entirely by the sale of 

 coal to foreign nations, that so much of our wealth has 

 been obtained, but largely by the circumstance that we 

 were the first nation to apply coal to industrial purposes 

 on a large scale and in a great variety of ways. Other 

 nations also possessing coal, perceiving the great success 

 of this method, followed our example, have overtaken 

 uSj and have now rendered it increasingly difficult, year 

 by year, for us to maintain our position as manufacturers. 

 As also large quantities of coal, petroleum, and inflam- 

 mable gas are continually being discovered and utilised 

 in other countries, and it is known that the United States 

 df America alone contain nearly forty times as much coal 

 as our entire stock, the time cannot be very far distant 

 when our chances of maintaining even our present posi- 

 tion amongst nations by means of our coal will be con- 

 siderably less than at present. It would be wise, there- 

 fore, boldly to face this serious prospect, and consider by 

 what means our national prosperity can be maintained 

 as our coal diminishes in quantity and increases in price, 

 especially as our population is continually increasing, and 

 require to purchase greater supplies of foreign food. 



There does exist another and inexhaustible source of 

 wealth and progress, viz. new knowledge obtainable by 

 means of scientific research. It is upon such knowledge, 

 gained by experiments made to examine natural forces 

 and substances, that we must sooner or later depend as 

 a fundamental source of national prosperity. As fast as 

 this knowledge is evolved by discoverers, it is applied in 

 more immediately practical forms by numerous inventors, 

 and then manufacturers and men of business use those 

 Vol. xxxi.— No. 799 



practical realities in the production of wealth. This has 

 been the order of events in the past, and will be in the 

 future ; this was the way in which we got wealth out of 

 coal. Persons of narrow views on the subject will con- 

 sider the above proposition vague and unpractical, but 

 this order of things is a great fact and unavoidable ; we 

 are the servants of nature, and have no choice in the 

 matter ; we might as well hope to live without food as 

 expect to advance in civilisation without the aid of new 

 knowledge. 



The practical value of new scientific knowledge as a 

 source of wealth and progress is incomparably greater 

 than that of all the coal-deposits, petroleum springs, and 

 gold-fields of the earth. This great truth, though familiar 

 to scientific investigators, is but little perceived or appre- 

 ciated by our rulers, or by the mass of their electors ; and 

 the chief reason for this is the fact that they possess in- 

 sufficient knowledge of science. Even Governments can 

 only appreciate that which they understand, and can only 

 act as circumstances and public opinion allow them, and 

 when fettered by an ignorant population, are powerless 

 to preserve a nation from decay. 



There cannot be a more complete error than to sup- 

 pose that new knowledge discovered by means of scien- 

 tific research is not practical. Its immense practical value 

 has been abundantly proved in a multitude of cases. It 

 was largely by means of such knowledge respecting coal, 

 its properties, constituents, and products, gained by means 

 of experiments, that coal was applied to so many uses. 

 One of the most recent proofs of the practical value of 

 such knowledge is the conversion of the heat of coal into 

 electric current and light in the dynamo-electric machine 

 and electric lamp ; the entire existence of these instru- 

 ments arose from new knowledge discovered in purely 

 scientific researches by Davy and Faraday. It is not 

 necessary to describe here the exact beginnings of gas- 

 lighting, phosphorus-matches, photography, the voltaic- 

 battery, electro-plating, aniline dyes, telegraphy, the tele- 

 phone, &c. ; these, and a multitude of other utilities in 

 common use, had their earliest origin more or less com- 

 pletely, not in the labours of the inventor or of the more 

 directly practical man, but in those of philosophical inves- 

 tigators whose experiments were made with the far more 

 Widely practical object, the discovery of new scientific 

 knowledge. 



It is not the mere possession of good things, but 

 making the best and earliest use of them that most con- 

 duces to success. Our great stock of coal lay compara- 

 tively useless as a source of national wealth unti[ 

 philosophical investigators discovered its constituents 

 and properties, and inventors applied these to useful 

 purposes ; other nations also possessed coal, and our 

 greater success than theirs was largely and essentially 

 due to the fact that we were the earliest in applying it to 

 important and varied uses. We must not wait, there- 

 fore, for those nations to discover for us new knowledge 

 respecting natural forces and substances, but discover it 

 ourselves, in order that we may have the first chance of 

 applying those forces and substances to practical uses, 

 and of offering the useful products for sale or in exchange 

 for food and other commodities. 



It is well known that a man who has no faith in medi- 

 cine will not apply to a physician until death stares him 



