IXXX PEOCEEDIXGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. [Juiie I912, 



Yariation in thickness and cliaracter of the seams themselves and 

 of the measures in which they are contained, and also for losses 

 due to earth movement and inter-formational denudation. Due 

 deduction was also made, and on a liberal scale, for waste in 

 working, which in concealed fields is always likely to he high. 

 Thus the Commissioners' estimate for unproved fields is entitled 

 to great respect. 



Hence, whether we estimate future consumption according to 

 Mr. Price Williams's second set of figures, or according to his first 

 set (which is in close agreement with those of Sir William Kamsay), 

 it is safe to place the same reliance on the Commission's 40,000 

 million tons of 'unproved' coal as on their estimate of 100,000 

 millions in ' proved ' coalfields. If we do this, we add approxi- 

 mately 45 years to Sir William Ramsay's 17o, and postpone the 

 theoretical date of exhaustion of the coalfields till about 2130 a.d. 

 Taking Mr. Price Williams's second set of figures, the date of 

 exhaustion would be a little before 2200 a.d. 



(2) The Necessity for Systematic Exploration of the 

 Unproved Coalfields. 



Surely it is not wise that a nation which owes so much in the 

 past to her coal, and looks to it in the future as the chief of her 

 remaining sources of wealth, should still have no term but 

 'unproved' to apj^ly to so large a proportion of her unworked 

 coalfields. Xeither can it possibly be right to allow a national 

 asset of this great value only to be revealed by casual explora- 

 tion or accidental discovery. Is it not our duty as a nation to 

 include it in our proved resources, to take deliberate stock of it, 

 and to prepare for its systematic exploitation ? 



It was the good fortune of Britain to possess large areas of 

 exposed fields from which the coal was easily and cheaply extracted, 

 and working was naturally at first concentrated on those areas. It 

 cannot, however, be said that the development of those fields has 

 been by any means ideal, despite the comparative simplicity of. 

 their structure and the shallow depths from which the bulk of 

 the coal was lifted. Some other countries have not been so 

 fortunate. In the Franco-Belgian Coalfield, where the proportion 

 of concealed to exposed coal is far higher than it appears to be 

 with us, it has been found necessary to explore the underground 

 structure in order to ascertain accurately the underground extension 

 of the exposed fields, and to search for other concealed basins 



