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igQ The Leader and SaturdayAnalyst. [Feb...
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Coal. Of All Tho Natural Possession* Whi...
with - ' glossy stems and pointed leaves ; innumerable ferns of far greater dimensions than our fern plants , and in fact tree-ferns . ; club mosses that would be giants to our mosses ; tog-ether with- plants Uavino" fluted stems and regular-ly indented seal-like scars ; the whole comprising- a fossil flora of about one thousand recognised species ,, once waving , and qxiivering- and bending under winds which have left no trace of their passage , and under suns which set in ages almost incalculably antecedent to that in which we . now write , — cheered and warmed by the heat and light emanating from the wreck and decay of miles after miles and years after years' growth of One of the earlier floras of our earth !' ..
While fossil botanists at home and abroad have busied themselves in examining and determining tlie species and dimensions ^ of the various plants from which coal was formed , and of which it bears memorials in its own substance and deposits , geologists have concerned themselves respecting the means by which these p lants were originally accumulated , then decayed , then pressed down and finally transformed into the present fuel . There are theories which have been fought for by the side of good coal-fires , and hotly discussed under gaseous illuminations derived from coal , and some of these survived and
have faded and been forgotten , while others have are now flourishing . The pith of-the questions is this-. —Were these enormous amounts of vegetation stationary in death as well as in life ; or were they , when fallen , driftedavyay into the repositories where their results are now discovered ? According to the former , or the Peatbo" - theory , the ancient forests and jungles originally flourished m the present , localities of coal , and in due time suffered subsidence together with the land upon which they grew , which thus became the basin of a lake or estuary , into whiGh broad rivers carried mud and shiirl . Out of these latter were consolidated those numerous beds of
shale and sandstone between which the seams of coal lie , as if preserved by them , and inclosed in sandy and shaley protections . "While these covers Ayere depositing , the vegetable matter became bituminised and mineralised into coal . ' ¦ Coal , therefore , is as it were boxed up in vast cases of sandstone and shale , which must be lifted before the fuel can be reached and extracted , Successful coal-miningis nothing else than the discovery and application of a key to unlock the ponderous , coal-cases of Mature . ;¦¦ ' . The second , or the Drift theory , admits , indeed , of partial and limited submersions and elevations of . land , but it does not suppose that coal was formed as peat-bogs are now constituted—by the continual decay of plants upon the same spot , and their slow accumulation without transportation .. Oh the contrary , it contends that the lakes
main bulk of the coal seams was deposited as drift and silt in and estuaries , into which thei constituent vegetation was deported by rivers and inundations . The transporting rivers were themselves liable to inundations , like the Nile and the Ganges , and thus swept down the vegetation which , in quiet intervals , grew around and closed up the deltas of the rivers . Many curious facts have been observed in the phenomena of the great rivers of the earth which seem to strengthen this theory ; but the singular evenness and uniformity of coal seams are against it . We are rather inclined to combine parts of both theories ; but even then there are some characteristics of coal deposits which are not easy to account for . As most diligent and careful researches are continually being made into the geology of our coal-field ? , we may yet learn particulars which may modify our theories in some directions and fortify them
in others . Theorise as we may about the mode of its deposition , the practical vajue and potential issues of this mineral fuel -are the same . Geologists are left to pursue their inquiries as they please , but merchants and ' mechanicians have a very different interest in coal . To ] bhe ' m it is a vast bituminous bank , the source of power and tho depository of wealth . Men who cannot name ono coal plant are making large fortunes out of coal . They care nothing about how the seam was deposited , but only how it can be extracted . To them ,
as to geologists , it is the philosopher ' s stone ; but only because it U convertible into gold . And it is perfectly-astonishing to learn what fortunes have been coined out or tin ' s bluck stono . As there aro cotton-lords at Manchester , so there are coal-lords at -Newcastle . That town itself has ; in one sense , arisen out of coal . It is the metropolis of coal : it has an aristocracy of c 6 al ; an exchange , mansions , ships , factories , an Armstrong- gun factory , railway ' s , machinery , and multitude ? of human beings , all of whom and all pi which may bo said to have grown out of the coal -just as they aro
topographically situated upon it . Then as to mechanicians- —what wpuld they bo without coal P Yot fow , if any , of them have beon aware of the amazing ; amount of mechanical force stored up in a latent state in this dull and deadlooking suhstanoe . Let iib instance this in the results of a calculation made by Professor Rogeus , and as concisely as may bo . Take an acre of coals ( of the be « fc kind ) according" to surfaco measurement , having-a thickness of four foot , and yon find its product will bo about five thousand tons , This possesses a reserve of moohanical strength which , when properly dovoloped by the application of it as fuel , would bo equal to the lil ' o labours of moro than one thousand six hundrod men . Now , talio a square mile of one such single
coall ) Qd , and it contains three million tons of fuel , winch is equivalent to the labour of one million men labouring through twenty year ? of their ripe strength . Assumjng that ton millions of tons out of tho annual coal produce of British coal-mir > ea aro applied , to tho productions of weojmnioal powor , then our country annually summons to her aid the mineral equivalent of three million three hundred thousand fresh men plecfgod to exert their fullest strength through twenty years , Roduoing tlua to ono year , wo find that England ' s actual annual expenditure of powor gonoratoci by tho use of coal own
be represented , by that of sixty ^ six million able-bodied labourers I But if we go so far as to convert the entire latent strength resident in the whole amount of coal annually produced by our coal-mines into its equivalent in human labour , then , by the same process of calculation , we shall find it to be more than the labour of four hundred million strong men , or more than double the number of adult males now upon the globe ! Said we not truly that coal is perhaps the most valuable of all our natural possessions ? To what extent do we possess this mineral fuel absolutely and comparatively ? And at what rate are we now actually and annually extracting it P Putting all our British coal deposits together ^ we have in Great Britain about 5 , 400 square miles of cOal area , while France lias only 984 , Belgium , 510 ; Russia , 100 ; Prussia , 960 ^ and Spain , 200 square , miles . As to . area , therefore , we stand very
high in comparison with other principal countries . But it is possible to approximate to the solid contents of available coals in these areas ; and then we find that the British islands contain ( upon an average tMchness of thirty-five feet of good coal ) a total of about 190 , 000 , 000 , 000 tons . France , with . beds of about the thickness of sixty feet , has 59 , 000 , 000 , 000 tons . Belgium , averaging the same thickness , holds 3 f > , 000 , 000 , 000 tons . The ratio of these estimated quantities of coal , making Belgium the unit , would be as follows : —Belgium , one ; France , less than two ; British islands , rather more than five : that is , Britain has five times the coal possessions of Belgium , and more than double those of France—leaving quality wholly out of consideration . All these together sink into insignificance as compared with the vast coal fields of America ; but we cannot now do more than refer to them . Our present business to
lies at home ^ near it . In quality of coal we are very fortunately endowed , as well as m quantity . The best bituminous Or caking coal in the world lies in the great coal field that underlies Newcastle , and stretches far into Durham and Northumberland . It is curious that Wallsend coal is known and prized , all over the civilized world . It warms the Anglophobe in France and in the United States . Men actually curse " perfidious Albion" and the " tarnation Britishers" while they warm themselves at the fireside which Britain supplies . A collier ship is the only argosy which cheers and enlightens " . ' all nations by its freight . A coal-ship distinguishes Englaud , a gun-ship Fiance , a . slave-ship America , —which of these is the benefactor of the world ? Indirectly , perhaps , our black coal may prove the best friend . of the black man . . _ ¦
The commercially interesting sights arid scenes associated with the mining and shipping of coal in . the great northern coal field of our country , are unknown to ' nine tenths of England ' s inhabitants . They take infinite pains to . reach-and traverse Koine and Naples , but they might learn much more at and around Newcastle and Durham . When , the infatuated Pope totters , and falls , or flies from Rome , and Rome itself decays upon its own earlier ruins , our coal towns will be flourishing , growing stronger , and extending further . Colliery establishments , tall engine chimneys , far-stretching tramways , trains of countless coal waggons , long rows of coalsheds and screens and store-houses , arid crowds of grim and dusky colliers Will be our signs of carbonaceous prosperity , more significant , though less sightly , than the old ruinous columns and arches and churches of the ecclesiastical metropolis of papal Christendom . In the issue Newcastle will beat Rome . The closing of our coal mines would be a far more terrible calamity than the -major excommunication- —that is the ultimatum of the Pope ' s power , as coal is the
ultimatum of ours . . With a line or two on our rate of mining we must conclude . The supply is a fixed and unalterable quantity , its extraction is a quantity largely increased and , in prosperous times , increasing . Tlie great northern coal field is tho chief souroe of . our best household coal . Its area is from seven hundred to eight Imndrod square miles . Tho rate at ' which it has been mined has augmented most wonderfully from a merely trifling beginning . In 1858 no less than 15 , tf 6 . J , 4 S < li tons were delivered from Durham and Northumberland . Jiow a mining engineer , known to us , has estimated that tho total merchantable " round" or good-aized coals which , can be extracted from this
coal field ( abating loss , waste , ' # 0 . ) , amounts to 1 , 251 , 282 , 504 Newcastle chaldrons ( each fifty-three hundredweight ) . A simple calculation , uppn these data , leads un to tho conclusion that , should the present rato of mining proceed , tho whole amount will bo taken out in little ; more than three hundred years . If we abato tho rate to ton million tons annually , then the period of exhaustion will be three hundrod and thirty-ono years . Thus , should the demand and extraction increase in tho same ratio as'thoy have hitherto dono , this groat coal field will bo hopelossly impoverished in the course of thro © centuries . Another mining engineer has arrived at the samo result by an independent calculation .
Tho total produce of coal overy year from tho oolliorios of the United Kingdom w ( fin- 1858 ) no less than 65 , 008 , 640 tons . Lot any clover arithmetician put these HJxty-fivo millions of tons in other and equivalent forms , and tho result would bo surprising * , and almost surpaHsing credit . Wq may take this as a text for wiothor articlo , in connection with tho anthracites and stoam coals , which aro now of the utmost national importance to us . Stoam warfiiro will turn more upon appropriate steam coal than most persons aro a ware of . We have' made particular rosoaroh ' iu ( , p pur national posnoHHionri of this kjiul of fuel , aild wo believe tjmt the results -are of Homo national importance Meanwhile , the public at largo are little aware Unit the annual value of our annual produce of coal amounts , at tho market price , to no loss a sum than sixtcon millions and a quarter < ¦> / our money ! Could wo arrive at tho consumer ' s price , and ad I ^ "n \ ° the market valuo , tho total would bo indeed , astonishing- Any
Igq The Leader And Saturdayanalyst. [Feb...
igQ The Leader and SaturdayAnalyst . [ Feb . 25 , I 860 ,
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Feb. 25, 1860, page 8, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_25021860/page/8/
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