Page 3 Advertisements Column 1

Southland Times, Issue 665, 3 May 1867, Page 3

Kegabding Coax, England is getting somewhat easier. Great discoveries have been made in Shropshire, beyond the boundary which geologists had assigned as the limits of the coal strata. It is remarkable, however, that on© living geologist prophesied the discovery, and gave correct arguments in support of his theory. Mr Bedlington, of the South Wales Khymney Works, estimates that the upper and lower coal seams of this district, two feet and upwards .in thickness, contain 21,374,976,000 tons of " workable" coal. The coal area is over BS6 square miles, on best authority. Monmouthshire and South Wales now yield 11,000,000 tons annually, at which rate the basin would not be exhausted for 1,918 years ; or, the United Kingdom jmight be wholly supplied for 229 years. These opinions are Concurred in by the leading mining engineers of South Wales ; so there is less occasion for alarm respecting the predicted exhaustion of our coalfields. - Fob thb Benefit of those who discuss the subject of population, wars, pestilence, famine, &c, it may be as well to mention that the number of nuraan beings living at the end of the hundredth generation, commencing from a single pair, doubling at each generation (say in 300 years), and allowing for each man, woman and child an average space of four feet in height, and one foot square, would form a vertical column having for its base the whole surface of the earth, and so spread out into a plain, and for its height 3674 times the sun's distance from the earth. The number: of human strata thus piled one on the other, would amoqat to