324 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. II. No. 37. 



in any of the standard works on political 

 economj' to which I have had access, I have 

 found it discussed in a more or less frag- 

 mentary manner in writings and addresses 

 of numerous engineers, statisticians and 

 other specialists, and since it is more con- 

 venient to quote largely from their writings 

 than to write anything original, I will now 

 trouble you with some quotations. 



I first quote from a recent lecture by Mr. 

 Edward Orton, State Geologist of Ohio, be- 

 fore the Ohio Mining Institute : 



" All the great applications of the stored 

 power of the world belong to the nineteenth 

 century, and the most important of them be- 

 long to the last 50 years. What has been 

 done Avithin this century constitutes by far 

 the most important chapter in the economic 

 history of the race. FossU power lies at the 

 root and center of this unparalleled advance. 

 In Great Britian alone coal does the work 

 of more than 100,000,000 men. It adds to 

 the wealth of these fortunate islands on 

 this basis. 



" The great powers, those that are mak- 

 ing over the world, are steam and electricity. 

 The steam engine lies at the bottom of by 

 far the greatest industi-ial and economic rev- 

 olution through which the race has ever 

 passed, and steam is now being reenforced 

 by the new motor, from which we justly ex- 

 pect so much. 



" We note some further consequences of 

 the discovery and use of fossil power on 

 the large scale. We shall find the most 

 striking characteristics of our day and age, 

 so far its the material side of life is con- 

 cerned, centering around this one element. 

 What are these characteristics of the nine- 

 teenth century? There are no more dis- 

 tinctive features of our time than the two 

 following: viz., the remarkable growth of 

 cities throughout the civilized world and 

 the unparalleled increase of the wealth of 

 men. Both take their rise in coal; both 

 are conditioned by its use in all their phases 



and stages. All modern manufactures are 

 absolutely dependent on the stored force of 

 coal. Machinery driven by this power is 

 everj'where replacing the skilled labor of 

 the olden time. Cities grow largely by 

 massing the ruder labor that our modern 

 factories can utilize. 



" With this growth of cities in the mod- 

 ern world, a group of problems arises, all 

 of which are new and of which we are 

 obUged to work out the solutions. No other 

 problems of equal gra-vity and urgency con- 

 front the statesman, philosopher or philan- 

 thropist of our day. All of them have 

 their root in coal." 



Mr. John Birkinbiue, Past President of 

 the American Institute of Mining Engi- 

 neers, estimates that if only 1 % of the con- 

 sumption of fuel of all kinds ia the United 

 States, including coal, wood, oil and gas, 

 were saved, it would be equal to 2,300,000 

 tons of coal per year. It is the work of the 

 engineer to devise ways and means to ac- 

 complish this saving and more. 



Mr. Chas. H. Loring, Past President of 

 the American Societj^' of Mechanical Engi- 

 neers, in his Presidential address in 1892 

 thus spoke of the influence of the steam 

 engine upon civilization : 



" The civilizations of antiquity were 

 limited to a few cities, and were based upon 

 a slave labor, the slaves being drained from 

 other places, which were thus doomed to 

 deepening barbarism. 



" The disgrace of the ancient civilization 

 was its utter want of humanity. Justice, 

 benevolence and mercy held but little sway; 

 force, fraud and cruelty supplanted them. 

 Nor could anything better be expected of 

 an organization based upon the worst sj'S- 

 tem of slavery that ever shocked the sensi- 

 bilities of man. As long as human slavery 

 was the origin and support of civilization, 

 the latter had to be brutal, for the stream 

 could not rise higher than its soiirce. Such 

 a civilization, after a rapid culmination, 



