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 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

years. When we take into account the fact that at the present time we are only obtaining a very small portion of the potential energy that exists in coal, and that science and invention are making rapid advancement in economics, we are warranted in believing that England's expectation of life may reach far beyond the period of one thousand years.

The old civilizations had no such elements of vitality as enter into the new. They were founded on muscular labor, on the flesh and blood of human beings, on brute force; while the new is founded on the forces and materials of nature. Not until the energy stored up in the coal fields is exhausted need we look for the setting of England's sun. Five thousand square miles of potential energy in the coal fields of Great Britain; 300,000 on this continent! Our expectation of life, who can tell us what it is?

Turning now to the Appalachian coal fields, we can predicate with a good degree of certainty the future occupations of the inhabitants of that section of country. There will be two classes, the agricultural and the mining: one working in the light, the other in the dark; one above ground, the other beneath it. There will be rolling mills, furnaces, and foundries, a forest of chimneys, the sun obscured by smoke unless science succeeds in burning it. The night will be bright with myriads of fires. The workmen will be covered with soot and grime. It will be a community dealing with the

crude materials of nature; hard-working, subject to all the vicissitudes that in the nature of things must accompany the mining of coal and manufacture of iron. Great questions in sociology loom upon us in the near future in relation to that section of our country of strikes, lock-outs, unions, disturbances, riots; questions for statesmen, educators, and philanthropists to grapple with.

But I pass on to consider another force of nature, affecting in a remarkable manner the States bordering on the South Atlantic and the Gulf.

The rotation of the earth upon its axis, from west to east, sets in motion the trade-winds and the great equatorial currents of the ocean. The <quatorial current of the Atlantic, flowing westward, striking against the coast of Brazil, divides into two streams; one flowing north, the other south. The northern branch passes into the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico, where the rays of the vertical sun raise the temperature to 79°. So high a temperature produces excessive evaporation, and the clouds laden with moisture, drifting inland, give the requisite heat and moisture to the whole southern half of the Gulf and South Atlantic States for the successful growth of the cotton plant. Hence, that section of our country has its destiny forever fixed: it is to be the world's great cotton field. No other section of the earth's surface has so favorable climatic conditions for its