ADDRESS. IXXV 



boundless store of iron and coal. Baron Eichthofen, who has visited and de- 

 scribed some of the coal-fields of China, believes that one province alone, that 

 of Southern Shansi, could supply the world at its present rate of consumption 

 for several thousand years. The coal is near the surface, and iron abounds 

 ■with it. Marco Polo tells us that coal was universally used as fuel in the 

 parts of China which he visited towards the end of the fourteenth century, 

 and from other sources we have reason to believe it was used there as fuel 

 2000 years ago. But what progress has China made in the last ten centuries ? 

 A great future is undoubtedly in store for that country ; but cau the race who 

 now dwell there develop its resources, or must they await the aid of an Aryan 

 race ? Or is any thing more necessary than a change of institutions, which 

 might come unexpectedly, as in Japan ? 



The art of extracting metals from the ore was practised at a very early date 

 in this countrj-. The existence long ago of tin-mines in Cornwall, so often 

 spoken of by classical writers, is well known to all. That iron was also ex- 

 tracted from the ore by the ancient Britons is most probable, as it was largely 

 used for many purposes by them before the Boman conquest. The Romans 

 worked iron extensively in the Weald of Kent, as we assume from the large 

 heaps of slag containing Roman coins which still remain there. The Romans 

 always availed themselves of the mineral wealth of the coiintries which they 

 conquered, and their mining-operations were often carried out on the largest 

 scale, as in Spain, for instance, where as many as forty thousand miners were 

 regularly employed in the mines at New Carthage*. 



Coal, which was used for ordinary purposes in England as early as the ninth 

 century, does not appear to have been largely used for iron-smelting until the 

 eighteenth century, though a patent was granted for smelting iron with coal 

 in the year IGllf. The use of charcoal for that purpose was not given up 

 until the beginning of this century, since which period an enormous increase 

 in the mining and metallurgical industries has taken place ; the quantity of 

 coal raised in the United Kingdom in 1873 having amounted to 127 million 

 tons, and the quantity of pig iron to upwards of 6^ million tons. 



The early building energy of the world was chiefly spent on the erection of 

 tombs, temples, and palaces. 



While in Egypt, as we have seen, the art of building in stone had 5000 

 years ago reached the greatest perfection, so in Mesopotamia the art of build- 

 ing with brick, the only available material in that coimtry, was in an equally 

 advanced state some ten centuries later. That buildings of such a material have 

 lasted to this day shows how weU the work was done ; their ruinous condi- 

 tion even now is owing to their having served as quarries for the last three 

 or four thousand years, so that the name of Nebuchadnezzar, apparently one 

 of the greatest builders of ancient times, is as common on the bricks of many 

 modern towns in Persia as it was in old times in Babylon. The labour re- 



* Strabo, bk, iii. cap. ii. § 10. t Percy's ' Iron and Steel,' p. 882. 



