"Every year the miners go into the ground and dig out coal and the railroads ship it for hundreds of miles, dragging back the empty cars, until the amount mined equals two and one-fourth times the earth and rock removed in digging the Panama Canal. _It took sixteen years to dig the Panama Canal. Our miners will dig two and one-half Panama Canals this year._ "In the mining of coal we are dealing with a task so gigantic that the wonder is not why we have not increased production to meet the demand, whatever that might be, but how, with the men and equipment overtaxed by the multiplicity of the demands of the war, we were able to increase the output fifty million tons in 1917, and will be able to add a probable fifty million tons to that high record the present year. "The wonder is increased when we note that every other coal-producing country now in the war found it impossible to maintain the pre-war production of coal. In every case the output is less now than before the war. In England seven and one-half per cent. less coal was produced the first year of the war than in the previous year and five per cent. less than this reduced output in the following year. America alone has been able to increase its production of coal in addition to meeting the thousands of other increases demanded by war preparation. COAL AND THE STEEL SUPPLY "As every one knows, coal mining is very largely a matter of coal transportation. The most difficult task involved in an increase must fall upon the railroads. The wonderful work these railroads are doing is brought into bold relief when we remember that in 1914, when the great war started, the output of bituminous coal in the United States was 423,000,000 tons, and that in 1918 it promises to be nearly 200,000,000 tons greater. "Apparently, this country today can furnish the steel required if only it can get the necessary coal. The work of the Fuel Administration during many months has been directed toward increasing coal production. These efforts have borne much fruit, miners are approaching one hundred per cent. service, while the railroads are outdoing themselves expediting the movement of coal cars from the mine to the consumer and back again.