Reviews—R. Meade—The Coal and Iron Industries. 325 
development of our railway system: but for a long period coal was 
distributed through the country, either by ships or by means of 
pack-horses, mules, and asses. The household coal of this great 
northern Coal-field has ever had a high reputation in the London 
market, where it is known as “seaborne coal.” The prices of coal 
and its cost of production, the population employed in the mines, 
and the resources and probable duration of the Coal-field, are likewise 
treated of. 
This account may be taken as a type of those that follow. Chapter 
TI. deals with the Yorkshire Coal-field, Chapter III. with the Cum- 
berland and Westmoreland Coal-fields, and so on. Chapter XVII. 
gives an account of the Bovey Coal or Lignite, and of the Bideford 
Anthracite, in both cases perhaps some further details and references 
to authorities might have been given. 
Accounts of the Coal-fields of Scotland and Ireland follow. The 
former country is fortunate in possessing the largest Coal-field in 
Great Britain, that of the Clyde Basin; whereas but little, as the 
author observes, can be said relative to the coal of Ireland. The 
time was when the sister island was two-thirds covered with coal- 
beds, now only a few patches or outliers are left. The total pro- 
duction of coal in Ireland in 1880 was but 133,702 tons, compared 
with 128,560,821 tons in England and Wales, and 18,274,886 tons 
in Scotland. 
A general summary in reference to the Coal-fields of the United 
Kingdom furnishes us with many valuable statistics. It may be 
interesting to quote the following :— 
QuantTITIES oF Coat REMAINING AND AVAILABLE For Future UsE From 1880:— 
TONS. 
Mneland ange Ww alese.sssct.n eeeeeacarecsesease 69,192,056, 317 
PSLCCOREL HONG Ue Ne Pten a UE hy Ae ine A a Sea 9,669,172,642 
TITS aval GNF i Ca Re TO RIE IMRT Sa iar Bas 154,384,079 
Total known Coal-fields... 79,015,613,038 
Concealed Coal-fields ...... 56,273,000,000 
Total coal available, 1880. 135,288,613,038 
Mr. Meade tells us, that with these available resources, and an 
annual output of nearly 147 millions of tons, supplies are yet 
ensured for 920 years hence. 
This brings us up to p. 815, and here endeth the account of the 
Coal-fields. Having thus indicated its contents, we may observe that, 
dealing as it does essentially with the economic science and statistics 
of our Coal-fields, it occupies a different position from that taken up 
by Professor Hull in his “Coal-fields of Great Britain,” where the 
physical structure of each coal-field, its faults and other geological 
features, are so clearly illustrated; nor does Mr. Meade treat of the’ 
dangers attending the miner or of the cause of explosions, and but 
here and there of the methods of working, information on which 
will be found in the work of Prof. Smyth on “Coal and: Coal 
Mining.” 
Passing on to the second part of the work before us, on the Iron 
