CONSERVATION" THROUGH ENGINEERING. 11 



which his particular article contains, thus enabling the injured pub- 

 lic to strike against an unfair mine. 



Furthermore we are to become great exporters of coal, unless all 

 signs fail, and such certification should be required as to every ton 

 sent abroad. 



EXPANSION ABROAD. 



Tt has been said that we have too many mines in operation, as we 

 appear to have too many miners, if we are to maintain only our 

 present output. Rapid expansion in the development of industry in 

 general may justify the existence of such mines and so large a corps 

 of workers, even with an adequate car supply and more abundant 

 local storage facilities, which are greatly needed in almost all places, 

 and a more even demand. If, however, this should not be so, there 

 is a foreign demand for the best of our bituminous coals, which at 

 present we are altogether unable to meet for lack of credits on the 

 part of those who wish the coal, and lack of ships to carry it. Eng- 

 land's annual production has fallen 100,000,000 tons, according to 

 Mr. Hoover, and the Eur{>ean demand next year will be more than 

 150,000,000 tons above her production. Whatever the world need, it 

 can not be supplied. It is too large for any possible supply by ship, 

 even if all necessary financial arrangements could be made, either 

 by loan or credit. Europe, indeed, svill sadly learn through this win- 

 ter how little coal she can live on tod how more than perilous is the 

 state of a people who are short of power, light, and heat. 



As this country prior to the war sold abroad no more than 4,500,- 

 000 tons as against England's 77,000,000, it is quite manifest that 

 here will be a new field for American enterprise, the enterprise 

 being needed not for the winning of markets as much as for find- 

 ing ways of dealing with the larger phases of a heavy overseas 

 trade with those who are without immediate resources. 



SAVING COAL BY SAVING ELECTRICITY. 



It is three years since Congress was urged that we should be em- 

 powered to make a study of the power possibilities of the congested 

 industrial part of the Atlantic seaboard, with a view to developing 

 not only the fact that there could be effected a great saving in power 

 and a much larger actual use secured out of that now produced, 

 but also that new supplies could be obtained both from running 

 water and from the conversion of coal at the mines instead of after 

 a long rail haul. A stream of power paralleling the Atlantic from 

 Richmond to Boston, a main channel into which run many minor 

 feeding streams and from which diverge an infinite number of 

 small delivering lines the whole an interlocking system that would 



