266 GEOLOGY OF OHIO 



the economic history of the race. Fossil power lies at the root and 

 center of an unparalleled advance. It is connected in a most intimate 

 and important way with a single invention, viz., the steam engine. 

 But the steam engine in all its formsis conditioned by and depend- 

 ent on the fossil fuels, which are now under consideration. 



The forests of any country would, under its exorbitant demands, 

 melt away like dew before the sun. In large portions of the world, and 

 even in those as England, where steam power has worked its greatest 

 triumphs, it would be simply impossible to use it in any large way, were 

 it not for the vast stocks of power that were stored in the strata during 

 the earlier ages of the earth's history. 



There are, in particular, two great lines of service rendered by coal 

 through the steam engine. They are found in manufactures and in 

 transportation. 



In manufactures, the steam engine supplies power wherever it is 

 wanted and just as much as is wanted. Before its advent men were 

 sharply restricted in their use of power. They were limited to winds, 

 to streams, to tides and to the power of muscle. The restriction applied, 

 not only to the amount, but also to the location of the available power. 

 But the steam engine has changed all this. It brings to any desired 

 point the energy that is required for the most gigantic and the most 

 varied tasks. 



At the bottom of all this wonderful and, on the whole, beneficent 

 activity, lies coal, the great representative of the fossil power of the 

 world. It is coal that turns every wheel, lifts every lever, strikes every 

 blow. In Great Britain alone, coal does the work of more than a hun- 

 dred million men. It adds to the wealth of these fortunate islands on 

 this basis. In transportation, steam has brought about a still more won- 

 derful change. The civilized world, with all its belongings, has been 

 mobilized by means of its application to locomotion. 



The sun power that in reality does all this work has been buried in 

 the earth's crust for many millions of years. While coal is rendering 

 these several lines of service it gives value at the same time to every 

 other form of power and every other source of wealth, as soils, forests, 

 mines. 



The most striking characteristics of our day center around this one 

 element. There is no more distinctive feature of the nineteenth century 

 than ( a ) the remarkable growth of cities throughout the civilized world, 

 and (b) the unparalleled increase of wealth among men. Both take their 

 rise in coal. Both are conditioned in its use in all their phases and stages. 

 In no century of the past has there ever been any close approximation 

 to these features of our own time. The problem of food and fuel supply 

 has heretofore held the growth of cities in close check, but coal in the 

 steam engine removes this check. Since the yeox 1800. the total wealth 

 of Great Britain has been more than doubled. Similar facts obtain in 



