ON THE EXHAUSTION OF OUE COAL. 
293 
our collieries were yielding very nearly ninety million tons. 
Mr. W. Stanley Jevons says, as if he felt it necessary to offer 
some excuse for Williams' fears, “When no statistics had 
been collected, and a geological map was not thought of, 
accurate notions were not to be expected."* * * § 
We have both statistical returns and geological maps; are 
the notions now entertained in the least degree more accurate 
than they were then? We fear not. When we examine the 
statements which have been made within these last few years, 
we cannot come to any other conclusion than this. We find 
Sir William Armstrong limiting our supply of coal, at our 
present rate of consumption, to a duration of 212 years.fi 
Mr. R. C. Taylor, fi who has been ever regarded as a com- 
petent authority on all that relates to coal, extends it to 
1,700 years. Mr. Edward Hull,§ who is, we should suppose, 
from his position, as well qualified as any man to make a just 
computation, says, — with an increase of one million and a half 
of tons per annum, our coals will only be sufficient for a little 
upwards of 300 years. Then we have Mr. H. Hussey Vivian, 
in his place in the House of Commons, || declaring that South 
Wales could supply “her own consumption for 5,000 years," 
and “ all England for 500 years." This certainly does not 
indicate any very accurate notions on the subject of the dura- 
tion of our coal-fields, even amongst those men who, from 
their connection with them, either directly or indirectly, may 
have been expected to possess the requisite knowledge for 
making a fair approximate estimate thereof. To this wretched 
uncertainty we must attribute the indifference to the question 
shown by the public. 
It is certainly a very severe reflection on this great com- 
mercial and manufacturing nation, that it should be, with 
the strangest want of thought, wastefully using, in enormous 
quantities, that natural production upon which its commerce 
and its manufactures depend, without having made any 
endeavour to ascertain, by a full and fair examination of the 
whole question, how long its coal-beds will bear the present 
drain upon them. 
* “ The Coal Question — an inquiry concerning the Progress of the Nation, 
and the Probable Exhaustion of our Coal Mines by W. Stanley Jevons, M.A. 
t “Report of the Twenty-third Meeting of the British Association,’ 
President’s Address, September, 1863. 
% “ Statistics of Coal,” by Richard Cowling Taylor, F.G.S. 
§ “ The Coal-Fields of Great Britain — their History, Structure, Duration, 
&c. by Edward Hull, B.A., of the Geological Survey of Great Britain. 
|| Speech on the Debate which arose in the House of Commons upon the 
Coal Clause, by H. Hussey Vivian, Esq., M.P. (Ridgway.) 
