he would have thought it a singular proviso that England should be watchful of her coal stores if she would preserve her position among the nations. And yet there is a closer connection between the present greatness of Britain and the mighty coal cellars underlying certain British counties than we are commonly prepared to acknowledge. Saxon steadiness and Norman energy have doubtless played their part in placing Britain in the position she now holds; but whatever may have been the case in past ages of our history, it is certain that at present there is much truth in Liebig’s assertion that England’s power is in her coal. The time may come again, as the time has been, when we shall be less dependent on our coal stores,—when bituminous bankruptcy will not be equivalent to national bankruptcy; but if all our coal mines were at this moment rendered unworkable, the power of England would receive a shock from which it would be ages in recovering. I have quoted an assertion made many years since by Baron Liebig. The assertion was accompanied by another not less striking. ‘Civilisation,’ he said, ‘is the economy of power; and English power is coal.’ It is on this text that I propose now to comment. There has recently been issued a Blue Book, bearing in the most important manner on the subject of England’s coal-supply. For five years fifteen eminent Commissioners have been engaged in examining the available evidence respecting the stores of coal contained in the various coal-fields of Great Britain. Their inquiries were commenced soon after the time when the fears of the country on this subject were first seriously awakened; and were directed specially to ascertain how far those fears were justified by the real circumstances of the case. It will be well to compare the various opinions which were expressed before the inquiries were commenced, with the results which have now been obtained. In the first place it should be noticed that the subject had attracted the attention of men of science many years ago. Some forty years[5] have passed since Dr. Buckland, in one of the Bridgewater Treatises, pointed to the necessity for a careful examination of our coal stores, lest England should drift unawares into what he called ‘bituminous bankruptcy.’ At that time the quantity of coal raised annually in England amounted to but about forty millions of tons. Ten years later the annual yield had risen to about fifty millions of tons; and then another warning voice was raised by Dr. Arnold. Ten more years passed, and the annual yield had increased to 83,635,214 tons, when Mr. Hull made the startling announcement that our coal stores would last us but about two centuries, unless some means were adopted to check the lavish expenditure of our black diamonds.