12 
OUR MINERAL RESERVES. 
for it will plainly not be wise to deplete too greatly this reserve of 
fuel, on which the Nation's industrial life must depend. At present, 
however, the question of the duration of our coal supply includes so 
many indeterminate factors that any prophecy as to the date of its 
exhaustion must be of questionable value, and it does not now seem 
at all improvident for us to utilize in some degree this abundant 
resource as a means of building up our foreign commerce and mak 
ing new markets for the products of our industries. 
Until the present war broke out Great Britain was the only coun 
try that exported coal in considerable quantity, but Great Britain 
is already beginning to feel the pinch of poverty in her coal sup 
plies, and it is highly probable that when peace is once more estab 
lished she will place restrictions upon her exports of coal. In 1013 
the exports of coal from Great Britain amounted to 82,200,000 short 
tons, and the bunker trade called for 23,555,288 short tons more. In 
the same year the exports from the United States, as already stated, 
amounted to a little over 25,000,000 short tons and the total bunker 
trade at the principal ports—New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, 
and Hampton Roads—was only about 7,500,000 tons, indicating that 
most of the trans-Atlantic liners, the majority of which are English, 
have been carrying from the other side a sufficient quantity of coal 
for the round trip. 
The high-grade steaming coals of the United States, which would 
be the coals in chief demand for export trade, are found largely in 
the eastern half of the Appalachian coal field, which includes the 
Clearfield, Allegheny, and Somerset districts of Pennsylvania on 
the north; the Cumberland region of Maryland; the Elk Garden, 
Fairmont, New River, and Pocahontas districts of West Virginia ; 
the southwestern counties of Virginia ; the eastern counties of Ken 
tucky and Tennessee; and the Birmingham and other districts of 
Alabama on the south. Of these coals, those available in highest 
quality are the semibituminous coals of the Pocahontas, New River, 
Elk Garden, and Cumberland districts and the better grades of 
Clearfield. The fields nearest the seaboard are those of the Cumber 
land and Elk Garden districts, but these fields are approaching 
exhaustion, so that the advantage in this respect will fall to the 
Alabama mines, which are being made more easily and cheaply 
accessible by the slack-water improvements in Warrior River, which 
have already resulted in a market advance of Mobile as a shipping 
port. 
PETROLEUM. 
Perhaps the most important change in the conditions of exports 
and imports affected by the war relates to crude petroleum and 
petroleum products, including benzine, gasoline, illuminating oils, 
lubricating oils, residuum, fuel oils, paraffine wax, and medicinal