LECTURE V.

THE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF OUR COUNTRY, AND ITS RELATIONS TO OUR FUTURE CIVILIZATION.

BY CHARLES Carleton COFFIN.

WO hundred and seventy-four years ago the first permanent settlement by Englishmen in this country was made on the banks of the James. To-day we number fifty millions.

The rapidity of growth, the vastness of our country, its resources, fertility of soil, mineral wealth,. varied climate and productions, free government and institutions; its geographical relations to Europe on the one hand, and to Asia, and to the new English nation rising under the Southern Cross in Australia, on the other; the regard for the Republic by people of all lands; the unparalleled tide of emigration flowing to our shores, inspirethe conviction that we are to perform some mighty part in the great drama of time.

The forces of nature are the different forms of energy which we see in light, heat, electricity, magnetism, gravitation, chemical affinity, which are only different modes of motion. So far as our

knowledge extends, all the energy of this planet, all that sustains life, all the forces within our reach which can be used for our advancement in the scale of being, come from the sun. The sun formed the coal deposits of the geologic periods. The sun sets the currents of the air and ocean in motion, precipitates the rain upon the mountains, sends the rivers to the sea, enabling us to use the energy of gravitation to spin and weave and hammer.

Not until the closing years of the last century did men begin to use the energy of nature, and to employ machinery to do the work of human hands. The inhabitants of Great Britain from earliest times knew that there was a black substance in the earth which they could use for fuel; they called it coal. It was carried from Newcastle to London by the sea, and hence was called sea-coal, in distinction from charcoal. As late as the year 1769, when the question of the supremacy of the Latin and Germanic races on this continent was being decided on the Plains of Abraham, the Academy of Science and Medicine in Paris was sitting in council upon the coal question, the dames of the court of Louis XV. declaring that its use was destroying their complexions, and asking for a prohibitory edict. The men of science declared it to be a valuable fuel; but nevertheless the ladies carried the day, and its use was forbidden.

Not till within the memory of many in this audience was it comprehended that coal was the storedup sunlight of the primeval ages. How little do we comprehend that the engine which drew us thither was propelled by the sun-heat of a period antedating by millions of years the appearance of man upon this planet! that our dinner this noon was cooked by the rays sent out by that mighty orb, through measureless space, in a period of bygone eternity!

With the using of the energy of nature in the form of coal, and the employment of machinery, there was the beginning of a new civilization. From the dawn of creation to the inventions of Hargreaves, Arkwright, Crompton, and Watt, the human race accumulated wealth only through muscular labor; to-day, the nations making the most rapid advancement are those which most employ the energy of nature. To the relative richness of the endowment which the Almighty has given to our country, I call your attention.

The coal area of continental Europe aggregates about 3,500 square miles; of Great Britain, 5,400. We do not yet know the full extent of the coal area of this continent; we only know that it exceeds 300,000 square miles. That of England is less. than the area of Massachusetts. In this country we have the fields of Nova Scotia; the anthracite basin of Pennsylvania, east of the Alleghanies;

the great bituminous field beginning in Northwestern Pennsylvania, running southwest, including half of Ohio, nearly all of West Virginia, a section of Kentucky, Eastern Tennessee, Northern Georgia, and half of Alabama. We have the fields of Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, and Missouri; the Rocky Mountain field extending from Wyoming to Arizona; the great lignite field of Dakota, extending northward through British America to the Arctic Ocean; the northwestern field from Washington to Alaska, a vast, undefined region of which we know very little.

One hundred years ago the coal used in Great Britain per annum was about 6,000,000 tons. At the present time it is not far from 140,000,000 tons; in France, 12,000,000; Belgium, 10,000,000; Germany, 26,000,000; Austria, 5,000,000; the United States, 20,000,000. Great Britain is producing nearly twice as much as all the world besides. We are to remember that the heat in a pound of coal will raise 1,200,000 pounds one foot : this is the working power of the best steam engines. The theoretical value is eight times greater, and it is altogether probable that science and invention will yet utilize very much of the theoreti cal value.

It is the energy contained in the 220,000,000 tons of coal consumed per annum that gives motion to most of the machinery of the world, the tilt

hammers, rolling mills, spindles; that is driving one hundred thousand locomotives along the railroads, and propelling thousands of steamships upon the ocean.

The new civilization is distinguished by the use of iron. The beneficence of the Almighty is seen in the great abundance of this material. In England and in the Appalachian range in this country, coal and iron and the limestone needed for smelting the ore are found in the same field. Ninetyfour years ago, the year in which this Republic accepted its written Constitution, the iron industry of Great Britain aggregated about 60,000 tons; last year the amount was 7,000,000 tons; in the United States, 3,000,000 tons.

The later years of the new civilization have been distinguished by the use of steel. The amount of steel produced in Great Britain in 1851 was 51,000 tons; in 1879, 1,300,000 tons. No steel was produced in this country in 1851, but last year the amount exceeded 1,500,000 tons.

Macaulay, picturing the growth and decay of nations, looks forward to the time when a NewZealander standing on the broken arches of London Bridge will gaze upon all that remains of England's greatness; but any such destiny is in the far future, for it is estimated by competent engineers that at the present rate of consumption, England has coal enough to last one thousand