IOO 
SCIENCE. 
The monopoly of the Anthracite coal fields by 
some seven corporations, which, according to 
the accompanying tables, now control about two- 
thirds of the whole, and the best coal area, 
must prove, under economic management, a profit- 
able investment for their stockholders. Mining, 
selling and transporting their own coal, as they do, 
individual enterprise cannot hope to compete with 
them, and must vanish from the ground, and their 
only rivalry will be with each other, and with the 
Bituminous trade. Fortunately for the public, this 
rivalry will always be keen enough to keep the price 
of coal at a fair low rate of cost and profit. 
The coal resources of Great Britain are all devel- 
oped now, and in process of depletion ; while in this 
country when our 470 square miles of Anthracite are 
exhausted, we have more than 400 times that area, or 
200,000 square miles of Bituminous, from which to 
supply ourselves and the rest of mankind with fuel. 
The coal product of the world is about 300,000,000 
tons annually. The North American continent could 
supply it all for 200 years. With an annual produc- 
tion of 50,000,000 tons, it would require twelve cen- 
turies to exhaust the supply. But with a uniform 
product of 100,000,000 tons per annum, the end of 
the Bituminous supply would be reached in 800 years. 
What the annual consumption will be when this con- 
tinent supports a teeming population of 400,000,000 
souls, as will be the case some day, must be left to 
conjecture. But with half that population, as ener- 
getic, restless, and inventive as our people in this 
stimulating climate have always been, under the 
hopes of success, such a country as this constantly 
holds out much to tempt ambition and reward enter- 
prise. 
If it be true, as Baron Liebig asserts, that civiliza- 
tion is the economy of power, we have it in our im- 
mense areas of Bituminous coal. There is no known 
agent that can answer as a substitute for the vast 
power and almost limitless usefulness of coal in its 
general adaptation to the wants of man ; and that 
nation will maintain the foremost rank in enlightened 
modern civilization which controls, to the fullest ex- 
tent, while it lasts, this wonderful combination of 
light and heat and force. We are wiser than our 
fathers ; and from the modest but sublime altitude to 
which we are lifted by physicial science, and the far 
extended range of mental vision which it opens up to 
us, we can see farther into the plans of Providence 
than those who went before us, and can conjecture 
the early, if not the remote, future of the human 
race in our land and in other lands. 
Happy that people whose legislators study the best 
mode of developing the natural resources of their 
country, and whose great men become great by im- 
proving the condition and promoting the welfare of 
the human race. The greatest of England’s five 
Georges was not either of those who wore the crown, 
but plain George Stephenson, of Manchester, who 
rolled the world farther along the path of progress 
than all the others; and none of the royal Jameses 
did half so much for the civilization of his country as 
James Watt, whose boyish study of the steaming 
tea-kettle developed the giant power that does the 
world’s work with an energy that is tireless and 
irresistible. 
ETHNOLOGY* 
FRAGMENTARY NOTES ON THE ESKIMO OF CUMBERLAND 
SOUND. 
By Ludwig Kumlien. 
II. 
They have an interesting custom or superstition, 
namely, the killing of the evil spirit of the deer; 
some time during the Winter or early in Spring, at 
any rate before they can go deer-hunting, they con- 
gregate together and dispose of this imaginary evil. 
The chief ancoot, angekok, or medicine-man, is the 
main performer. He goes through a number of gyra- 
tions and contortions, constantly hallooing and calling, 
till suddenly the imaginary deer is among them. Now 
begins a lively time. Every one is screaming, running, 
jumping, spearing, and stabbing at the imaginary 
deer, till one would think a whole mad-house was let 
loose. Often this deer proves very agile, and must be 
hard to kill, for I have known them to keep this per- 
formance up for days; in fact, till they were com- 
pletely exhausted. 
During one of these performances an old man 
speared the deer, another knocked out an eye, a third 
stabbed him, and so on till he was dead. Those who 
are able or fortunate enough to inflict some injury on 
this bad deer, especially he who inflicts the death- 
blow, is considered extremely lucky, as he will have 
no difficulty in procuring as many deer as he wants, 
for there is no longer an evil spirit to turn his bullets 
or arrows from their course. 
They seldom kill a deer after the regular hunting 
season is over, till this performance has been gone 
through with, even though a very good opportunity 
presents itself. 
Salmo salar , and one other species of Salmo that 
I could not procure enough of to identify, are caught 
to some extent in June and September in some of the 
larger fjords; they are mostly caught with a spear, but 
sometimes with a hook. (For description vide under 
hunting-gear, etc.) 
When these fish are caught, they are put into a 
seal-skin bag, and it remains tied up till the whole be- 
comes a mass of putrid and fermenting fish, about as 
repulsive to taste, sight and smell as can be imagined. 
Cott/es scorpius, which contributes so largely towards 
the Greenlander’s larder, is not utilized by the Cum- 
berland Eskimo, except in cases of a scarcity of other 
food supplies; the fish is abundant in their waters, 
however, and fully as good eating as they are on the 
Greenland coast. 
Birds and their eggs also contribute towards their 
sustenance in season; they are extremely fond of eggs, 
and devour them in astonishing quantities. 
The “black skin” of the whale, called by them 
muktuk , is esteemed the greatest delicacy. When 
they first procure a supply of this food, they almost 
invariably eat themselves sick, especially the children. 
We found this black skin not unpleasant tasting when 
boiled and then pickled in strong vinegar and eaten 
cold ; but the first attempts at masticating it will re- 
mind one of chewing India rubber. When eaten to 
excess, especially when raw, it acts as a powerful lax- 
ative. It is generally eaten with about half an inch 
of blubber adhering. 
* Bulletin (13) of the United States National Museum. Contributed to 
the Natural History of Arctic America, made in connection with the 
Howgate Polar expedition, 1877-78. 
