398 J. Starlxie Gardner — Underground Seat. 



foi'm an idea of the consumption from the fact that in 1615 the 

 number of Ycssels employed in the coal trade consisted of only 400 

 sail. Twenty-five years later between 600 and 700 were employed. 

 The inroads on the stock of coal could not be serious until deep 

 mining began, and it is apparent that little more than two centuries 

 have brought us within a measui-able distance of its exhaustion. 

 The bases upon which the Eoyal Commission of 1871 reported the 

 probability that the supply would not last more than 106 years are 

 but too well known. Our working coal-fields contained but 

 90,207,000,000 tons available, and it was estimated that unworked 

 fields might contain 56,273,000,000 more. Nothing has since come 

 to light affording any ground to hope that these totals have been 

 under-estimated ; but, on the contrary, subsequent research has 

 rendered it probable that they are too high. A century seems a 

 long time, but it might actually be almost spanned in a single life, 

 and certainly within the lives of the offspring of already wedded 

 couples. The time might be prolonged by checking the unremunera- 

 tive and increasing export, but any measures that could be taken 

 would necessarily prove futile in the long run. We need not do with- 

 out coal for a long time to come after our own stock is exhausted, if 

 we have money to purchase ; for we possess in Australia coal-fields 

 400,000 miles in extent, and in India 30,000, while China is as rich 

 as Australia, and the United States exceed all other countries with the 

 immense area of 500,000 miles of coal-field. The consequences of 

 having to import our coal are however no pleasant subjects for con- 

 templation to an Englishman. 



But even the coal areas of the whole earth will be found to be 

 finite quantities. Should the human race continue to multiply at its 

 present rate, their exhaustion is a matter of time, and sooner or later 

 the question that has become momentous to us will in turn become 

 no less so to other nations. Artificial light and heat have become so 

 essential to us, that the continued progress of humanity, if not its 

 existence, is dependent on their supply. We need not stop to con- 

 sider now the probable future of the electric light, for the question 

 of heat would remain, and we know of no fuel at present, regularly 

 replenished by nature, except wood and turf. By husbanding these, 

 a residuum of civilized humanity could exist in temperate regions, 

 but any one who has realized how marvellously the wants of the 

 humblest creatures are provided for will be slow to believe it to be 

 within the scope of a scheme which appears so transcenden tally per- 

 fect, that the supply of one of the most vital necessaries should fail 

 us. Coal is the limited accumulation of vegetable matter of almost 

 a single geological epoch, a transitory store to be used we may hope 

 during a transitory condition of things. There is no ground to sup- 

 pose that the end of our planet is near, nor the cessation of life upon 

 it w^ithin a measurable distance ; and if humanity has any destiny, we 

 must have faith that some means of satisfying its needs will be pro- 

 vided. We have the sun's heat above, unequally distributed and 

 intermittent ; can we ever hope with the Laputans to " bottle sun- 

 beams " ? We have the central heat beneath us ever present ; can 



