TRANSACTIONS OP SECTION C. 651 



Resources. 



The knowledge of our mineral resources is of such vital consequence to our- 

 selves and to our present and future welfare as a nation, and yet it is a matter of 

 so much popular misconception, that I feel bound to dwell on this subject a little 

 longer. To anyone who studies the growth and distribution of population in any 

 important modern State the facts and reasons become as clear as day. 



It is easy to construct maps showing at a glance the density of population in 

 any country. Perhaps the most eflective way to do so is to draw a series of 

 isodemic lines and to gradually increase the depth of tint within them as the 

 number of people per square mile increases nntil absolute blackness represents, say, 

 over 2,000 people per square mile. Such maps are the best means of displaying 

 1he_ geography of the available sources of energy in a country at any particular 

 period. Population maps of England and Wales in the early part of the eighteenth 

 century would be pale in tint with a few rather darker patches, and would show 

 a distribution dependent solely upon food as a source of energy working through 

 the medium of mankind and animals. Such maps would be purely agricultural 

 and maricultural, dependent upon the harvests of the land and sea. Maps made at 

 a later period would show a new concentration round other sources of energy, par- 

 ticularly Avind and water, but would not be perceptibly darker in tint as a whole ; 

 for although we are apt to think that we have in this country too much wind and 

 water, they are not in such a form that we can extract any appreciable supply of 

 energy directly from them. 



But maps representing the present population, while still mainly energy maps, 

 at once bring out the fact that our leading source of energy is now coal and no 

 longer food, wind, or water. The new concentrations, marked now by patches and 

 bands of deepest black, have shifted away from the agricultural regions and 

 settled upon and around the coalfields. The" map has now become geological. 



The difference between the old and the new map is, however, not only in kind ; 

 it is even more remarkable in degree. The population is everywhere much 

 denser. Not only are the mining and manufacturing areas on the new map more 

 than eight times as densely populated as any areas on the oldtfr map, not only is 

 the average population five times greater throughout the country, but the lightest 

 spot on the new map is nearly as dark as the darkest spot on the old one. The 

 sparsest population at the present day is as thick on the ground as it was 

 in the densest spots indicated on the older map, while at the same time the stan- 

 dards of wages, living, and comfort, instead of falling, have risen. 



The discovery of this new source of energy, coal, immediately gave employment 

 to a much larger number of people ; it paid for their food and provided the means of 

 transporting it from the uttermost parts of the earth. Under agricultural condi- 

 tions the map shows that the population attained a given maximum density, and 

 no further increase was possible, the density being regulated by the food supply 

 raised on the surface of the land. Our dwelling-house was biit one story higli. 

 Under industrial conditions our mineral resources can support five times the 

 number. Our dwelling-house is oifiw stories — one above ground and four below it. 

 At the same time the type of distribution is altered. The agricultural areas 

 are now covered by a relatively scanty population, and the dense areas are 

 situated on or near to the coal and iron fields, the regions yielding other metals, 

 those suitable for industries which consume large supplies of fuel, and a host of 

 new distributing centres, nodal points on the new lines of traffic, either inside the 

 country or on its margins where the great routes of ocean transport converge, or 

 where the sea penetrates far in towards the industrial regions. 



It has been the good fortune of this country to be the first to realise, and with 

 characteristic energy to take advantage of, the new possibilities for development 

 opened up by the discovery and utilisation of its mineral wealth. "\Ve were ex- 

 ceedingly fortunate in having so much of this wealth at hand, easy to get and 

 work from_ geological considerations, cheap to transport and export from geogra- 

 phical considerations. So we were able to pay cash for the products of the whole 



