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