All About Engines

Fuel and Its Problems 329 did anyone attempt to calculate the amount avail- able, and it was three years later when the powerful voice of Professor Stanley Jevons was raised in warning. Ultimately the Government appointed a Royal Commission, which reported in 1870 that the probable amount was 146,480 million tons. And as the amount raised in that year was only no million tons there appeared to be sufficient to last 4,000 years. But the amount raised annually did not stop at no million tons. Factories and workshops increased and multiplied; ships became larger, swifter, and more numerous. The population of the towns grew rapidly while, relatively, the population of the coun- try declined. The demand for food exceeded, to a greater and greater extent, the home supply. More and more food had to be imported, and for many of our imports we had to pay directly or indirectly in coal. Consequently the amount raised annually in- creased as shown in the following table :— 1871 . . . no million tons 1898 • . . 202 1899 • • • 220 ,, „ The 4,000 years of possible duration was now re- duced to 2,000 years, and there was still no sign of the demand for coal abating. In 1901 another Royal Commission was appointed. They reported in 1905, and came to the conclusion that there was still a store of 140,000 million tons—a result which confirmed the opinion of the Commission which sat thirty years