230 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1919. 
still so depend, although her control of the Saar Basin gives France 
about 18,000,000 tons of coal a year. 
Since coal is a basic raw material, without which no modern war 
could be fought at all, it is gratifying to realize that not only is the 
United States the greatest coal producer in the world, but that we 
also have the world’s greatest reserves of iron ore within the North 
Atlantic Basin, where our coal reserves are largely located. Ninety- 
six per cent of the world’s reserves of coal are in the northern hemi- 
sphere; about 70 per cent are in North America, and over 50 per cent 
in our own country. Our production of soft coal in 1918 was over 
585,000,000 tons, an increase of 38 per cent over the output in 1914. 
Industrial preeminence and therefore military power rest on coal 
and iron. Together, these constitute 90 per cent of the world’s min- 
eral output. Of all belligerent countries the United States is the only 
one with well-balanced coal and iron reserves. Ore goes to the coal, 
and the coal locations, therefore, determine those of industrial de- 
velopments and markets and consequently those of iron furnaces. 
Speaking generally, the limiting factor in coal production is the 
number of empty cars which the railroads can place at the mines, 
and our own coal troubles during the war were really due to the 
congestion of our railroads due to other freight. A similar conges- 
tion of transportation was experienced in all the belligerent coun- 
tries and emphasizes the need of avoiding coal transportation wher- 
ever possible. This has led to proposals for superpower plants at 
the mines in England and to great plans for common-carrier trans- 
mission lines for power in the industrial region along our own North 
Atlantic coast. 
Before the war it was a common practice to haul the coal from 
one field over other coal fields and past the mouths of operating mines 
much nearer the ultimate destination of the coal so transferred. The 
zoning system which we adopted put an end to much of this need- 
less transportation and led consumption to the territory nearest the 
producing field. Moreover, in a time of war a consumer’s right to 
any commodity must be conditioned by the relation of his activities 
to the national necessity, and the early recognition of this limitation 
led to the establishment of priority schedules covering coal and other 
essential raw materials. 
The railroads of the United States use 27 per cent of the coal 
we mine, and they use much of it in transporting coal itself. To 
save transportation, therefore, a system of rigid inspection was insti- 
tuted, for with crippled transportation facilities we could not afford 
to haul slate and bone and dirt. 
Nowhere in the world does there exist another general storehouse 
of useful minerals comparable to the United States, but natural 
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