112 BTILLETIN 102, VOL. 1, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM. 



Meanwhile the demand is increasing at the rate of some 50 million 

 tons each year. The expansion in new consumption, then, may fairly 

 be expected to offset any curtailment in bulk that betterment of pro- 

 cedure may permit. The best that may be hoped for is a check in the 

 growth of the coal burden under which organized transportation is 

 already staggering. To let this burden freely continue to increase, 

 trusting the outcome to luck, is to court all kinds of trouble, if not dis- 

 aster ; yet, even with best effort, there is little prospect of a diminish- 

 ing requirement. 



It would appear, therefore, that at best we must continue to deal 

 with over a half billion tons of coal. This figure, then, may be taken 

 as representing the minimum of actual demand that must fall upon 

 transportation, the minimum of tonnage whose full utilization in con- 

 sequence is called for. Primarily this enormous amount of coal is 

 now consumed in order to gain the energy contained in it, all else being 

 disregarded. But coal is something more than energy in material 

 form ; it is also a source of many valuable mineral products. Indeed, 

 it is a veritable treasure house of values, in this regard far surpassing 

 any other type of mineral substance.^ Upward of a thousand coal 

 products are in use to-day, some of them filling needs less conspicuous 

 but every bit as vital as that for fuel. And the development is still in 

 its infancy. A few years ago and few of these products were known. 

 Chemical vision can see no limit to the further unfoldment in pros- 

 pect. The boundary to this field is like the horizon, always in sight 

 but never to be reached. There can be no full utilization of coal 

 which fails to take these matters into account. 



At the present time a very small proportion of the coal consumed is 

 adequately used. Putting to one side anthracite, which has an energy 

 value merely ^ and therefore yields a reasonable service in its crude 

 state, and counting off about one-twelfth of the bituminous coal, the 

 portion subjected to by-product recovery in connection with the manu- 

 facture of coke, we find that there still remains each year in round 

 numbers a half billion tons of coal which are consumed in the raw con- 

 dition with a total loss of the commodity values and an uicomplete 

 recovery of the energy. The sum total of this loss represents the 

 margin between present attainment and fuU utilization, and may be 

 presented in tabular form, as follows: 



1 With the possible exception of petroleum. 



* Its commodity values were lost in the course of its strenuous geological history. 



