Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 8.djvu/239

Rh COAL.J ENGLAND 227 was disputed by other investigators, who expressed confi dence that the limit was 2500 feet, a depth already reached in some existing mines. Greater still must be the uncertainty regarding the possible or probable discovery of other sources of motive power as substitutes for coal, The opponents of the widely expressed theory that such discoveries were not only possible, but of the very nature of scientific progress, which having, quite recently, taught mankind the high value of coal, was not likely to stop here, found powerful support in Professor Tyndall, who insisted that coal was the absolute monarch, present and future. &quot;I sec no prospect,&quot; he wrote to Professor Jevons, &quot;of any substitute being found for coal as a motive power. We have, it is true, our winds and streams and tides ; and we have the beams of the sun. But these are common to all the world. We cannot make head against a nation which, in addition to these sources of power, possesses the power of coal.&quot; Professor Tyndall concludes with the somewhat startling dictum that &quot; the destiny ot this nation is not in the hands of its statesmen, but of its coal-owners/ adding, emphatically, that, &quot; while the orators of St Stephen s are unconscious of the fact, the life blood of this country is flowing away.&quot; Professor Tyndall wrote this letter in 1866 ; and if, as he and others thought, the &quot; life-blood of this country &quot; was then fl ow i n g a t too high a rate, it has been flowing much faster ever since. In the ten years from 1856 to 1866, the production of the coal mines of the United Kingdom rose from 66,645,450 tons to 101,630,544, and after another lapse of ten years, in 1876 it had risen to 133,344,766 tons. The gradual rise in production is indi cated in the subjoined table, which shows the quantities and the value of the coal brought from the mines of the United Kingdom every third year from 1855, when the first accurate returns were published, to 1876 : Years. Quantities. Value. Tons.

1855 01,453,079 16,113,267 1858 65,008,649 16,252,162 1861 83,635,214 20,908,803 18G4 92,787,873 23,197,968 1867 104,500,480 i 26,125,145 1870 110,431,192 27,607,798 1873 127,016,747 47.631,280 1876 133,344,766 46,670,668 It is an admitted fact that the price of coal, which has been gradually rising in recent years, must continue to rise, both on account of its increased consumption, and of the constantly growing expenses of raising it. Although the total area of the coal-fields of Great Britain extends, accord ing to the most authentic estimates, over 5400 square miles, comparatively few new pits have -been opened in recent years ; and the ever-increasing demand has been supplied by the deepening, as well as widening, of the best collieries. This could only be achieved at an increased outlay, inasmuch as the cost of raising coal to the surface and the attendant expenses of administration and super vision are far greater than the cost of the actual displace ment of the material from its beds. From the returns of one of the oldest and best-managed collieries in England, the South Hetton, in Durham, it appears that out of 529 men employed, only 140 were hewers of coal. The account, interesting in various ways, stands as follows : Persons. Hewers of coal 1 40 Putters, screeners, and loaders 227 Administrative stall 123 Miscellaneous workers 39 Total number of persons employed in colliery ...529 The extraordinarily large number of persons required in a colliery, over and above the actual producers of coal, to attend to the working of the establishment, is explained by the mine and its machinery requiring the most strict and unceasing supervision to prevent dangerous accidents. Thus a large staff of workmen and artisans of all kinds, such as smiths, joiners, engine-wrights, masons, and others, has to be kept, to watch over the complicated apparatus by which the mine is ventilated and the precious mineral raised from the bowels of the earth, ft may be said that, as a rule, the working of the collieries of England and Wales is most satisfactory, the superintendence, both on the part of the private owners and the Government, being the best that human ingenuity can devise. Nevertheless, the annual Joss of life is terribly large In the ten years from 1857 to 1866, the number of deaths from colliery accidents averaged 1000 per annum, and though in the next ten years the death rate decreased, it never fell under 800 a year. The production of coal in the United Kingdom was more Expoi than doubled in the period from 1855 to 1876, buttheofcoa exports to foreign countries during the same time increased nearly eight fold. From 4,976,902 tons in 1855 the exports rose to 9,170,477 tons in 1865, and to 11,702,649 tons in 1870. They further rose to 13,198,494 tons in 1872, to 13,927,205 tons in 1874, to 14,544,916 tons in 1875, and to 16,299,077 tons in 1876, Of the total exports of the year 1876, France took 3,160,555 tons, Germany 2,243,722 tons, and Italy, Russia, and Sweden and Norway each a little over a million tons, the remainder being distributed over thirty other foreign countries and British colonies. Vast as has been the amount of the coal exports in recent years, they still represent less than one-eighth of the coal produce of the country, The mines of the district of South Durham alone produced in 1876 considerably more coal than was exported to all foreign countries. Iron Ore. Though vastly inferior, as a source of national j ron , wealth, to coal, and deriving nearly all its value from it, still the second most important produce of English mines, the iron ore, has the greatest effect upon the industrial char acter of the country. England and Wales alone produce iron ore, the amount raised in Scotland and Ireland being quite insignificant. It amounted in Scotland to 5226 tons, valued at =3432, and iu Ireland to 116,066 tons, valued at 60,748, in 1876. The whole of the rest of the pro duce of the United Kingdom, 16,720,291 tons, valued at 6,761,525, was raised in England and Wales. The following table exhibits the quantities and value of the iron ore raised in the chief producing counties and districts of England and Wales in the year 1876 : Counties. Quantities. Value Prodi of iro Cornwall Tons Cwts. 18,390 s. (1. 10 566 18 ore in Engli Devonshire 9 936 10 5 075 15 and Somersetshire 44 299 3 31 110 3 6 Welsl Gloucestershire 115,098 3 77 394 3 count Wiltshire 83 957 20 989 5 Oxfordshire . ... 26 140 5 9 28 Northamptonshire 1,161,130 10 173 366 10 Lincolnshire 573 374 15 101 622 19 Staffordshire North 19 998 13 14 658 10 Lancashire 984,460 18 728,505 15 Cumberland 1,353.910 9 996,046 2 6 Yorkshire, North Riding Northumberland and Durham South Wales and Mon mouthshire, 6,562,000 24,202 12 83,969 15 1,162,020 14,521 16 41,484 17 Iron Ore worked under the i Coal Mines Regulation &amp;gt; Act in other counties.... 5,659,423 3,378,933 6 Total, England and Wales . 16,720,291 6,761,525 C