ANrnVERSATlT ADDEESS. 21 



6. Missouri ba&in : more than 100,000 square miles, all 

 considered productive. 



7. Texas : 5,000 square miles ; coal in places 1 feet thick. 



8. Arizona: not fully developed, but knoM^n to be rich in 

 numerous localities. 



The total amounts to 230,659 square miles, and the whole are 

 of the old Carboniferous era ; besides which, there are the 

 Virginia Triassic coal, and the immense amount of California. 



In 1861, Mr. Hull stated the produce of the coal-fields of the 

 ^North American British possessions to have been 2,000,000 tons. 

 In 1871, as I learn from reports received from Canada, 500,000 

 tons ; and in 1872, 800,000 tons of Cape Breton coal, were sold 

 in that dominion. Mr. Hull also calculated that the whole of the 

 area in North America was thirty-eight times larger than that of 

 the British coal-fields, whilst the production of the latter was 

 eight times greater than the American. (" Coal-fields of Grreat 

 Britain," p. 217.) 



In 1867, Mr. "Warington Smyth (" Treatise on Coal and Coal- 

 mining," p. 96) rates the annual pi'oduction of the United States 

 at 18,000,000 tons, but with an annual importation of half a 

 million. 



The same Avriter adds a cautionary remark, justifying what I 

 said before : — " It is reported " — he quotes from " Her Majesty's 

 Secretaries of Embassy and Legation," 1866 — "that great loose- 

 ness seems to exist in the compilation of figures involving large 

 sums, as well as in the 'returns required to be made by the 

 Companies." He adds this : — " On passing, then, to what is of 

 more weight — the thickness of workable coal — we are constrained 

 to believe, whilst fully realizing the colonial value of the Apala- 

 chian, and of the Illinois and Indiana deposits, that the data for 

 the estimation of the contents of the others are not yet satis- 

 factory, and that the progress of exploration in such vast tracts 

 will show many an element for subtraction." (p. 98.) 



"What may have been the management of our own coal mines 

 up to this date is not generally known ; but there can be no harm 



