The Ashburton Guardian. Magna est Veritas et Prævalebit. WEDNESDAY, JUNE 29, 1887. THE CANADIAN COAL MEASURES.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume V, Issue 1596, 29 June 1887, Page 2

The Ashburton Guardian. Magna est Veritas et Prævalebit. WEDNESDAY, JUNE 29, 1887. THE CANADIAN COAL MEASURES.

There is perhaps no evidence m the whole economy of Nature which speaks more plainly of that manifest design which argues the existence of a Supreme controlling Intelligence, to to whose wise adaptation of means to end the order and beauty of the universe are due, than is to be found m the vast deposit of coal stirred up m tho very bowels of the earth for the use of man. Carrying back the imagination to the prehistoric periods of the world's histoty, when beneath the fervent raya of a tropical sun dense forests of magnificent palm?, t _ which those now extant are mere pigmies, grew and flourished, with a wealth, of beauty apparently utterly wasted because looked upon by no appreciative eye. asve that of the Creator, it is wonderful to think that all this profuse vegetation was absorbing the light and heat of the great luminary and storing it up to furnish the source of mechanical energy, of heat, and illumination for the world of to-day. And, indeed, the progress which has been made by man would have been utterly impossible but for those great forests of the distant geologic ages, which were the source and origin of the vast coal measures which lie buried beneath the soil m so many parts of the earth, and which are the very fans et origo of more thathalf of our mechanical arts. England, indeed, owes much of ber progress, her^ wealth and powesr, to her rich endowment m the shape of coal fields, and when these are exhausted, unless m the meantime other means of developing light, heat and power (such as the uiifusation of electricity) take the place©! coal, she cannot fail to lose the premier position among manufacturing nations, which she now occupies. Indeed^, not so long ago, the subject of the exh_u.stic.t- of the English coal measures within a comparatively short period of time was the topic of many learned disquisitions and of much discussion among scientific circles, and it is generally conceded that within a few generations such a result of the immense consumption which is going on must necessarily be realised. In view of such a contingency, however distant, it is comforting to think that there are other {tf-denormoiis deposits of this valuable 'and indispensable mineral beneath othfjr parts of the Earth's surface, New Zealand itself, happily, being able, if rjeed be to supply all the demands of the whole world for a long period of time.- New South Wales, as we all know, is also richly endowed m this respect, and so also is the Dominion of Canada. So little has, however, been said about the Canadian coal fields that we fancy few of our readers have any idea oi the vastness of their extent, and probably, therefore, the following, which is gathered from a letter to the '•Scotsman," by its Ottawa correspondent, will be read with interest. This. authority states that "throughout the Dominion are scattered 97,000 square miles of coal fields, containing, at a low estimate, 100,000,000,000 tons of coal. In the maritime pro vinces, the north-west territories, and British Columbia, beds of this fu«el exist, but they are wanting m Ontario , and Quebec. In 1885 the latest published returns show that British. Columbia produced from the colliet'.es at Wellington and Nanairao 36a 0 00 tons of very superior coal, which, ' W as shipped to San Francisco j>- tU j the Sandwich Islands, the latter nr jw being a considerable coaling static- , n m the Pacific,Jand likely to be st-iU more used as such, owing to the new Pacific line of steamships from Ausr ra ij a . Large coal beds of lignite form- al i on lie along the valleys of the Sas* . atc hewan and Souris rivers m .' the north-west territories while anthr ac j te CO al is now being mined m the J .tocky Mountain approaches. In Not , a Scot i a t h e _e are three distinct coal i ja sins— Cape Breton, Picton, and Cumberland. The Sydney mine id Cf tpe Breton was commenced id 178/ . a nd has been m constant operatio n ev er since that date. During the past year> 2 886, there were shipped from .' jSfova Scotia 1,430,00 c tons of coal." fjw fi gutes w m GO nve>

some idea of the value of Canada's coal mines and the wealth yet to be obtained frora that source, and prove that whether or not the coal mines of England be speedily exhausted, the world at large need be under no anxiety as to the possible failure within any proximately early period of its chief source of mechanical energy and of artificial light and heat.