1850. England especially a Colonizing Power. 61 doubt, that doubt is not whether systematic Colonization be a practicable thing, or whether England possesses the powers of carrying it into effect, but whether she will exercise her powers, and exercise them in time. No one questions that it is the intention of Providence that every serviceable part of the globe should be the dwelling-place of man and as little reason is there for believing that such a design is to be accomplished only through irruptions of horde displacing horde, or the random efforts of refugees flying from starvation. Among other grave, reasonable, and heroic works, Colonization is reserved especially for those nations which have approved themselves worthy of transmitting their names and institutions entwined with the future hopes of man. It is through the noblest nations that nature extends the race; as it is for the most part through the soundest individual constitutions that she perpetuates it. The wealth of England alone could never have summoned her to so high an office. The hardihood, the enterprise, and the perseverance which have imparted to her that wealth, and many a better gift,-it is these things that lay upon her the duty of devoting each of her talents to its most exalted office. It is not for nothing that to England has been committed the sway of an empire on which the sun never sets, at that precise period at which scientific discoveries have won their latest triumphs over space and time; and at which the pressure of population creates an uneasiness at home, perilous at all times, but most perilous when popular influences and public opinion have acquired the ascendency they now possess. What hardship is it, if that strong Anglo-Saxon race which has vanquished the asperities of the severest climates, and breasted a kindly or adverse fortune on the remotest shores, be called upon at once to fill up the measure of its peaceful victories, and to reap the full benefit of its past trials? In England the largest experience is now united with the largest powers and the largest empire. Every past error is a lesson of incalcu lable worth; and every effort to realise a more scientific method of Colonization has been attended with the happiest results. It is by successive trials only that great lessons are perfectly learned. Ride on,' says the Psalmist, and thy right hand shall 'teach thee.' It is a noble work to plant the foot of England and extend her sceptre by the banks of streams unnamed, and over regions yet unknown, and to conquer, not by the tyrannous subjugation of inferior races, but by the victories of mind over brute matter and blind mechanic obstacles. A yet nobler work it is to diffuse over a new created world the laws of Alfred, the language of Shakspeare, and that Christian religion, the last great heritage of man. But the most elevated duties are the most exacting; and nations which prove not equal to their highest privileges, strive in vain to keep their humblest franchises. 6 Confugiendum est ad Imperium!' The consummation of our Colonial Empire is necessary for our domestic peace. ART. II.—1. Observations on the Necessity of adopting Legislative Measures to diminish the Recurrence of Fatal Accidents in Collieries, and to prolong the Duration of the Coal Mines of the Kingdom. By W. CHAPMAN, Civil Engineer. 1815. 2. The National Importance of preserving Mining Records. By T. SOPWITH, F. G. S. 1844. 3. A Bill for establishing District Registers of all Mines and Mining Operations in England and Wales. Printed by Order of the House of Commons, Aug. 1844. REAT BRITAIN is indebted to its Mines for its colonization G in the mists of time, -for much of its present importance, and, according to Bochart and others, even for its very name. Its whole history indeed is associated with these subterranean treasures. The most ancient nations of the East resorted to it for tin and copper. Julius Cæsar, like the Spanish conquerors of the West, was attracted to its shores chiefly by rumours of its mineral wealth: And Pliny, and even the severer Tacitus, invested Britain with the splendours of an El Dorado. These golden visions, to be sure, were not realised. But the Romans worked extensively its mines of lead, and extracted silver from the produce. It was reserved for much later times to discover that the stratification of Britain was of almost unequalled variety, and that it contained, to an extent never dreamed of, the most abundant supplies of coal and iron. The manufacturing industry of the North originated in, and was long satisfied with, the power derived from the uncertain streams issuing from its mountains. But the Steam Engine at last opened out visions of national wealth more gorgeous than the mines of Peru. It not only enabled the deeper metallic and other mines to be worked, and thus added new realms of happy conquest to the nation, but it formed in itself a matchless power for all the industrial arts of life. All that this many-handed and munificent giant demanded for its unceasing labours, was a sufficient supply of its peculiar food: and fortunately for Britain, this food was found within her shores in a profusion and of an excellence unparalleled in Europe. The present importance of British mining will appear by the 1850. Great Britain's Subterraneous Wealth. 63 following brief statement: -193,000 persons are actually employed in the mines, and 142,000 more in the strictly metallic arts and manufactures. The entire population depending on mining was, in 1801, 394,212, in 1841, 799,918 and now probably little short of a million. The annual profit rated to the Income Tax was, in 1801, 2,000,000l., in 1841, 3,600,000/*; and now certainly above 4,000,000l. The yearly produce of copper is about 15,000 tons, of lead, 50,000 tons, and of tin, 5000 tons. It is difficult to estimate the enormous produce of iron. Mr. Porter, in his Progress of the Nation,' states it at 1,250,000 tons; and in 1846 we find it estimated at 2,200,000. With respect to coal, it was calculated that, in 1835, the produce was 24,000,000 tons: and there can be no doubt that it has since prodigiously increased; in consequence, particularly, of the vast enlargement of our iron manufactures. Mr. Taylor, as stated in our last October Number, estimated, it in 1846, at no less than 34,754,750. The total annual produce of British mines was valued long ago at 25,000,000l. †: and it is now some years since an eminent foreign writer calculated that the subterraneous wealth of Great Britain (including, we should suppose, lime, marl, stone, brickclay, and every other terrene substance) was scarcely less than that which was yielded by its surface! and we remember that at the time one of our first native authorities upon such a subject observed, that the data upon which this calculation had proceeded were correct, as far as he was acquainted with them. These vast operations are highly gratifying, no doubt, to our national feelings. But their very magnitude tends to create apprehension for their duration. It may be true that in metallic mining there are still great unexplored fields; and that the iron regions, in particular, are hardly yet fully known. But the experience of late years has amply shown that the duration formerly assigned for that most important of all our national minerals—coal, must now be much abridged, by its prodigiously increased consumption. Into this question, which has been * Spackman's Analysis of the Occupations of the People. In 1837 M. Verlet formed the following comparative table of the mining produce of Europe: much discussed since the parliamentary inquiry of 1829, we cannot now enter. But the quantity of available coal has certainly been much exaggerated; and the yearly demand for it is still more certainly increasing to an extent not dreamed of by those who, not long ago, assigned so many ages for its endurance. Already some of the best seams of coal are becoming extinct. In the region of the Tyne, this has been accomplished in the brief space of seventy years: and ere long it must also occur in the fine districts of the Wear and the Tees: and though it is calculated that there are still not less than 12,000 square miles of good workable coal in Great Britain and Ireland, we cannot but feel that the prophecy of Mr. Bakewell, who examined the question with great care,—that we may anticipate a period not very remote 'when all the English mines of coal and ironstone will be exhausted,'-is now much nearer completion than he himself could see, in a day of far less activity and enterprise.* But, indepen *We have a confident hope, however, or rather a firm beliefthat, long before our coal-fields are thus really exhausted, discoveries will be made, both of new Motive powers and new sources of Heat or Caloric, which will make all future generations independent of these clumsy and dingy resources. Motive power, we think, will probably be supplied, either directly by such omnipresent and inexhaustible elements as Electricity and Galvanism, or by the employment of some gas, far more elastic than steam, and capable of being called into action, and again condensed, by slight mechanical impulses, or by changes of temperature incalculably less than are now necessary for the management of that comparatively intractable substance. But, even if we should still require to use steam, we are persuaded that means will be devised for its generation,—or rather for the production or evolution of Heat, for that and all other purposes, -far less operose, indirect and precarious, than the combustion of coal. This may probably be effected, without any process of combustion at all, either by the great agents of galvanism or electricity already referred to; or by the friction, hammering, or rolling, of solid and practically indestructible bodies; or by the forcible compression of common air, or of other elastic fluids; or by the chemical combination of different substances; while, if combustion must still be resorted to, might it not be constantly maintained without the tremendous expense of the working and transportation of fuel, by merely contriving a method of burning the inexhaustible, omnipresent, and eternally reproduced element of hydrogen, as it exists in the great ocean, and in all our lakes, rivers, fountains, and tanks and tubs of rain water, with the equally omnipresent, inexhaustible, and constantly reproduced oxygen of the circumambient atmosphere? These, we are aware, may now strike many (perhaps most) people as mere Utopian or Laputan fancies: And undoubtedly they are, as yet, but vague and general suggestions. But when we consider how 1850. Necessity of preserving Records of Operations. 65 dently of the question of exhaustion, there are abundant reasons, as will presently appear, for drawing the serious attention of the legislature to the present condition of the British mines. Of all the regulations relating to mining, the most obvious certainly seems to be that of preserving a precise Record of the discoveries and operations actually effected. If the minerals of Britain were gathered from the visible surface, like the diamonds of Brazil or the gold of California, or were quarried, like freestone, from the open rock, such a provision might be unnecessary. But in vast works, carried on at immense depths, never penetrated by the light of day, where each field of labour is liable to many fluctuating periods of decay, and desertion, and active prosecution to unseen encroachments of dangerous elements, and treacherous neighbours - such an omission in such vast and vital concerns, and in such an age, may well create surprise. But it is nevertheless true, that there is no British mine, be it deep or shallow, of which the operations are so recorded as to be certainly and safely depended upon, for the guidance of the future adventurer, after the lapse of a few years. There are some reasons and some apologies no doubt for this neglect. In many continental countries there is a very rigid system of registration. But, with few exceptions, all the mines much wilder and more audacious (as less warranted by any analogous experience) similar anticipations of Electric Telegraphs, Photographic painting, or Railway locomotives must have appeared but fifty years ago, we really cannot consent to put them into such a category; but, on the contrary, confess to a certain feeling, both of pride and of confidence, in thus recording what we cannot but consider as a truly Prophetic, though it may be but a dim and somewhat indistinct, vision of a good and a glory to come. It is not necessary, however, for our escape from the evils we anticipate, that all these discoveries should be made before our own paltry twelve thousand square miles of coal are actually dug out and consumed; since we know that, independent of other sources, there are, within the territories of the United States alone, not less than one hundred and thirty-five thousand square miles of the same precious mineral! for the exploitation and easy transport of which— to our shores and to all the shores of the world,-we doubt not that vast and yet unimagined facilities will be found, before we suffer much from the failure of our home resources. * In Prussia the mining companies are compelled, by the terms of their grant, to provide two copies of exact plans; one of which is placed in the custody of the Government, in the archives of the Court of Mines. These plans are most carefully prepared by sworn surveyors, upon a scale of Tooth of the actual dimensions, and are brought up to the actual state of the works, once or even twice in VOL. XCI. NO. CLXXXIII. F |