Note 263-4 — Chapter III

England is especially well situated in this respect, in consequence of its excellent commercial position and its surplus of the principal auxiliary products, such as coal, iron, etc. Should the coal-beds of such a manufacturing country be ever entirely exhausted, it is scarcely possible to see, from our present point of view, how the most rapid and most frightful decline of its national economy could be averted! Compare the opening address before the British Association, by Armstrong, at Newcastle (1863), who prophecies the exhaustion of the English coal-beds in 212 years at the rate at which coal had been consumed during the eight preceding years. According to the report of the royal committee on the coal question (1871, vol. III), Great Britain has still attainable deposits, that is 4,000 feet deep, 90,207,000,000 tons of coal in its coal beds already known; and in beds not yet worked, 56,273,000,000 tons. Compare, also, Jevons, The Coal Question (1866). It is estimated that the most productive French coal-field will be exhausted in 100 years. (M. Chevalier, Rapport du Jury international de 1867, 57.)