March 8, 1889.] 



SCIENCE. 



183 



instruction should commence with such simple exercises as draw- 

 ing and describing different forms of leaves, and should gradually 

 advance to the easier and more conspicuous flowers, and later to 

 the more obscure and difficult forms of flowers, the fruits and 

 seeds. 



The zoological instruction in the lower schools should not 

 attempt a systematic survey of the whole animal kingdom, but 

 attention should be directed chiefly to the most familiar animals, 

 and to those which the pupils can see alive. The common domes- 

 ticated mammals should first be studied, and later the birds, the 

 lower vertebrates, the insects, Crustacea, and mollusks. While 

 the range of zoological instruction must be limited as regards the 

 number of forms studied, those few familiar forms should be so 

 compared with each other as to give the pupils, very early, some 

 conception of the main lines of biological study, — morphology, 

 physiology, ta.xonomy. 



Special prominence should be given to the study of plants and 

 animals which are useful to man in any way ; and the teacher 

 may advantageously, from time to time, give familiar talks in re- 

 gard to useful products of vegetable and animal origin, and the 

 processes of their manufacture. 



Attention should also be given to the more obvious characteristics 

 of the kinds of minerals and rocks common in the region in which 

 any school is situated, and to such geological phenomena as are 

 comparatively simple and easily observed. 



A most important feature of the scientific instruction in the 

 lower grades should be to encourage the pupils to collect speci- 

 mens of all sorts of natural objects, and to make those specimens 

 the subject of object-lessons. The curiosity of the children will 

 thereby be rationally cultivated and guided. 



The subject of human physiology and hygiene is of so immense 

 practical importance, and so few comparatively of the pupils ever 

 enter the high school, that we regard as desirable some attempt 

 to teach the rudiments of the subject in the grammar, and even in 

 the primary schools. 



They recommend the introduction of exceedingly rudimentary 

 courses in physics and chemistry in the highest grades of the 

 grammar school, and further, as perhaps the most desirable 

 branches of science to be included in the classical courses in the 

 high school, and to be required for admission to college, physical 

 geography, phasnogamic botany, and human physiology. The first 

 is suggested as tending to keep alive in the student's mind a sym- 

 pathetic acquaintance with nature in its broader aspects ; the 

 second, as affording unequalled opportunities for discipline in obser- 

 vation ; the third, as affording knowledge of the greatest practical 

 importance. 



The rudiments of physics and chemistry, which they propose for 

 the grammar schools, will enable physical geography and physiology 

 to be intelligently studied in the early years of the high-school 

 course. 



For the scholars in the English course in the high school, there 

 will naturally be more advanced and system.atic instruction in 

 chemistry, physics, and zoology, and also instruction in geology 

 and astronomy ; but the classical students may with propriety 

 leave these studies until they reach them in the college course. The 

 scientific instruction they will have received in the primary and gram- 

 mar schools, and the study of the three branches above specified in 

 their high-school course, will be sufficient to preserve that natural 

 and wholesome sympathy with nature the loss of which is now 

 the main obstacle to the successful study of natural science in the 

 colleges. 



THE COAL QUESTION IN ENGLAND. 



Mr. R. Price Williams, M.Inst.C.E., read a paper on the " Coal 

 Question " at the meeting of the Royal Statistical Society on Feb. 

 19. The following is an abstract of the paper as given in Engi- 

 neering : — 



After paying a well-deserved tribute to the labors of the late 

 Professor Jevons in connection with this subject, the author shows, 

 by a series of tabular statements and diagrams, the rapid increase 

 in the coal-production of England prior and subsequent to the date 

 of the coal commission in 1871. The Northumberland and Dur- 



ham coal-field, as is pointed out, still gives to Newcastle its pre- 

 eminence as the chief source of the coal-supply, the output last 

 year from Durham alone amounting to over 28,750,000 tons, or to 

 more than one-sixth of the total production in the United King- 

 dom. Attention is drawn to the fact that during the last four or 

 five years there has been a considerable decrease in the output 

 from these northern coal-fields ; and the maximum limit of the 

 coal-production it is considered has been reached, and hencefor- 

 ward it will continue to decline. It is shown, that, at the average 

 rate of increased production during the last twenty-two years, the 

 9,294,000,000 tons of available supply would be entirely exhausted 

 in about ninety-four years. 



The author devotes a considerable part of his paper to the South 

 Wales coal-field, — a district he is well acquainted with, — and 

 attention is directed to the remarkable development which has 

 occurred during the fast few years in the South Wales steam coal- 

 trade, the 26,000,000 tons produced last year coming next in 

 amount to that of Durham. This large quantity is shown (after 

 allowance is made for waste in working) to represent about 5,381 

 acres of a four- foot-thick coal-seam practically worked out in the 

 course of a single year. The total available supply in the South 

 Wales coal-basin is estimated by the coal commissioners at 36,566,- 

 000,000 tons, or just one-third of the whole available supply in the 

 United Kingdom, which, at the rapid rate of increased production 

 which has obtained during the last quarter of a century, would, as 

 the author shows, be entirely exhausted in the short space of 

 seventy-nine, years. 



The rapid development in the coal-production in the eastern 

 division of this coal-field, which contains the famous steam coal- 

 measures, is strikingly shown by the enormous growth of the coal- 

 exports from Cardiff, more especially to foreign countries. In 1864. 

 these only amounted to 1,500,000 tons, doubled in the next ten 

 years, and again doubled in the following seven years ; while in 

 1887 they amounted to 8,250,000 tons, or to more than a third of 

 the entire coal-exports for the United Kingdom for that year. 



Two-thirds of the South Wales coal-supply is obtained from 

 Glamorganshire, more particularly from the eastern division, con- , 

 taining these valuable steam coal-seams. The author shows, that, 

 if the production from this eastern portion of the coal-basin con- 

 tinues to increase at the average rate it has done during the last 

 twenty-four years, the whole available supply, which the coal com- 

 missioners estimated at 12,963,000,000 tons, will be entirely worked 

 out in the course of the next sixty years ; and the portion contain- 

 ing the lower or steam coal-seams, in the short space of forty-two 

 years. 



The coal exported from Cardiff, consisting chiefly of this high 

 class of coal, the author points out, represents, after making allow- 

 ance for waste in working, about seven acres of the famous four- 

 foot steam coal-seam entirely worked out during each working day 

 of the year. 



The coal-productions from all the other principal coal-fields are 

 separately dealt with ; and the dates at which, at the average in- 

 creased rate of output during the last twenty-four years, they will 

 become exhausted, are given in the following summary: — 



rears. 



Northumberland and Durham 94 



South Wales 79 



South Wales (eastern division) 46 



Lancashire and Cheshire 74 



Yorkshire, Derbyshire, and Nottingham 90 



Warwickshire . 53 



Denbighshire and Flintshire 250 



Scotland 92 



United Kingdom loz 



Under the head of coal-consumption, particulars are given of the 

 chief uses to which the coal is applied, from which it appears that 

 the coal consumed in the manufacture of pig iron, and in the man- 

 ufacture of merchant iron and steel of various kinds, amounted at 

 the time of the coal commission to nearly one-third of the coal 

 produced in the United Kingdom. The large economies since ef- 

 fected by the Bessemer, Siemens, and other processes, are shown, 

 however, to have reduced the consumption in 1887 to little more 

 than 16 per cent of the coal-production. Attention is drawn to the 

 large economies effected and to be effected by the use of compound 



