440 
ROWLEY : OUR COAL RESOURCES. 
electricity for power in the daytime and for light at night ; (2) the 
use of the most approved steam-raising and using plant, or as 
an alternative the use of producer gas, which can be used most 
economically in gas engmes ; (3) the employment of the lowest 
grades of fuel, which are now either wasted or command a very 
low i:>rice. Another proposal, which is also being carried out 
with the sanction of Parliament, is the distribution of Mond gas 
for power jourposes, and we have the South Staffordshire Mond 
Gas Company at present ])utting this project into application. 
These and similar schemes are bound to revolutionise the con- 
sumption of coal and effect very great economies, doing away 
with innumerable small and wasteful steam plants, and we may 
expect our annual coal production to soon reach its maximum 
and then drop, but the cause of tlie fall will not be due to the 
exhaustion of our coal supplies, but economy in its use whereby 
coal is made to go farther. In the last 30 years remarkable 
changes have taken place in the scientific aspect of mining. 
We liave seen the substitution of fans for furnaces, the abandon- 
ment to a large extent of pillar-and-stall and other wasteful 
methods of working in favour of the long wall method, in which 
the coal is rem.oved in one operation ; we have seen also the 
discovery that coal dust is explosive under certain conditions, 
the abolition to a large extent of horse haulage over long dis- 
tances in favour of the wire rope ; the employment of high 
pressure steam generated in Lancashire boilers instead of the 
old egg-ended type, the application of mechanical means to the 
under-cutting of the coal ; and in the increasing use of electricity 
we shall no doubt have further alterations taking place in the 
next 30 j^ears. There is no doubt that the physical character 
of our collieries will change, and thick seam collieries become 
thin seam collieries. Increased attention will also have to be 
paid to steam-raising appliances so as to reduce the consumption 
of coal at the colliery to the minimum, and also to coal screening 
and coal-washing plants, to make the inferior seams equal to 
those that are being worked at present. In conclusion, I should 
like to refer biiefl}^ to a subject recently raised — namely, the 
nationalisation of our steam coal mines. The smokeless steam 
'Coal of South Wales is, of course, a limited amount, and the 
