Neither we nor the physician from whose
volume we derive our suggestions, mean for a
moment to assert that food can be taken
generally as a substitute for medicine. There must
exist in the stomach the power to turn meat into
nutriment; as there must be the power to
sustain fatigue when the prescription is exercise.
To order Devonshire cream and brandy to an
ineffectual digestion, would be as irrational as to
force long walks upon weak legs and panting
lungs. It is now, however, certain that the powers
of nature in the human body commonly labour to
effect recovery from any disorder that befals the
frame, and that to reduce those powers, is to
starve the garrison by which our fortress is held
for us, to disarm our own troops rather than those
of the enemy. A popular prejudice on behalf
of measures that go to the sustaining and the
husbanding of life and strength whenever
sickness comes, would save much of the waste of
health that now comes of domestic faith in
household purgatives and water gruel.

   HOW LONG WILL OUR COAL LAST?

WHEN we are told by competent authorities
that some eighty millions of tons weight of coal
are every year raised and used within the
compass of our narrow island, it is impossible not to
feel something approaching alarm as we contemplate
the possibility of at least a partial exhaustion
of the supply for which the demand is so
vast. It is not at all easy to realise the meaning of
so large a quantity as eighty millions of tons,
but we may approach at least to some idea
concerning it if, instead of mere weight, we reduce
it to some other dimension. Let us first see
how large a building would be required to house
a single year's consumption.

Coal weighs, in the compact state in which it
is found in the earth, something less than a ton
to the cubic yard; in order to contain eighty
millions of cubic yards of coal unbroken, our
building must cover a square mile of ground,
and have a clear height of about eighty
feet. In the state, however, in which coal
is sent to market, much more space would be
needed. In order to bring this coal to our store,
which, for convenience' sake, we may consider
to be placed in the neighbourhood of London,
let us see how the three main lines of
railroad coming through coal districts, would
manage to carry the load. Regarding a train
drawn by one engine as carrying about one
hundred and fifty tons, and assuming that six
such trains could be despatched every hour, day
and night, without intermission, it appears that
about a thousand tons could be delivered per
hour by each line, making a grand total of
seventy-two thousand tons per day. At this
rate, however, we should only have delivered at
the end of the year a little more than twenty-six
millions of tons. In other words, not one-third
part of the year's consumption of coal could be
conveyed to a central point if the whole business
of three complete railways was devoted to that
purpose. Or, if we suppose the coal transported
by ships and carried by screw colliers, each of a
thousand tons burden, and performing the round
trip in ten days, it would require a fleet of
upwards of two thousand such ships (not allowing
anything for repairs and accidents) to carry
the coal from the mine to the store.

Next, let us consider how much space this
quantity of coal occupies in the earth, before
extraction. An average thickness of workable
coal in a very profitable coal-field is about six
feet; but it must not be supposed that the whole
of this can be taken. Even under the most
favourable circumstances there is a loss of
twenty per cent, and it is seldom that any large
extent of coal exists without some of these
fractures and troubles which greatly diminish
its value. It would require, therefore, at least
fifty millions of square yards, equal to about
seventeen thousand five hundred acres, or not
far short of thirty square miles, of a single
bed two yards thick to supply the annual
demand.

These are large figures, and may be
considered to justify the alarm of some of our legislators,
who would have us at least retain the power
of checking any greatly increased demand which
may arise among our neighbours on the other
side the Channel. This is a case in which a little
sound practical knowledge of geology is required:
lest, on the one hand, we should, permit our
country to be deprived of the fountain of all
her wealth: or, on the other, we should
prevent the carrying on of a fair trade in a raw
material which we possess in greater abundance,
and can sell cheaper, than our neighbours.

Looking at the question from the first point
of view, we are bound to remark that our share
of this kind of mineral wealth is limited. It is
a great patrimony bequeathed to England,
Wales, and Scotland, by the races that preceded
us in the occupation of the country—an
inheritance of personal property, if we may be
allowed the expression, consisting of capital that
can be spent: not like an entail of landed
property that we can only occupy; we are, therefore,
responsible morally to those who may come
after us for the proper use of it. We have no
right to waste or destroy it, nor in any way to
interfere with the value of what we do not
immediately require.

As property, it is difficult—perhaps impossible
—to exaggerate its importance. It is at
present strictly and absolutely the source of all
mechanical power. With it we can do and
obtain anything that requires power—locomotion
by land and sea, manufactures and manufacturing
implements of all kinds—heat, and light.
All our domestic arrangements are dependent on
it. Without it we should hardly be able to call
ourselves a people. We have no other sources
of fuel, and, therefore, no other means of
obtaining steam, which, at the present day, is a
necessity of our existence. And we have no
means of replacing from our large profits in the
use of it, one particle of this magnificent capital.
We can use, but we cannot create it. How
coal was formed, is still to some extent a