APPENDIX.

APPENDIX I.

THE GULF STREAM.

"THERE is a river in the ocean. In the severest droughts it never fails, and in the mightiest floods it never overflows. Its banks and its bottoms are of cold water, while its current is of warm. The Gulf of Mexico is its fountain, and its mouth is in the Arctic Seas. It is the Gulf Stream. There is in the world no other such majestic flow of waters. Its current is more rapid than the Mississippi or the Amazon, and its volume more than a thousand times greater.'

sea.

The waters of the Gulf Stream are warmest at the surface, and gradually decrease in temperature, as the deep-sea thermometer descends, but, all through, they are far warmer than the water on either side at corresponding depths. There is reason to believe that nowhere are they permitted, in the oceanic economy, to touch the bottom of the There is everywhere a cushion of cold water between them and the solid parts of the earth's crust. This arrangement is suggestive and eminently beautiful. One of the benign offices of the Gulf Stream is to convey heat from the Gulf of Mexico, where, otherwise, it would become excessive, and to dispense it in regions beyond the Atlantic, for the amelioration of the climates of the British Islands and of all Western Europe.' If the warm water of the Gulf Stream were sent across the Atlantic in contact with the earth's solid crust-comparatively a good conductor of heat-instead of being sent, as it is, in contact with a non-conducting cushion of cold water to fend it from the bottom, all its heat would be lost, and the soft climates of both France and England would be as that of Labrador, severe in the extreme, and ice-bound.'Maury's 'Physical Geography of the Sea,' pp. 25 & 49.

APPENDIX II.

THE ARIGNA IRONWORKS.

THE principal beds are on the south side of the Arigna river, which flows into Lough Allen on the south-west. They show indications of having been worked at an early period; but, as was generally the case through the country, they appear to have been discontinued on the exhaustion of wood for fuel. On the discovery of pit coal in the district, the Arigna ironworks were established, in 1788, by the Brothers O'Reilly, who were unsuccessful. The works were then carried on by Mr. Latouche, the banker, to whom they owed money, but were abandoned by him in 1808, after an expenditure of 80,000l. Next a company was formed in London to work them, in 1825-the Arigna Coal Company. After some years this company failed, not from any deficiency of the material to produce good iron, but because the undertaking had fallen into the hands of dishonest jobbers, who made it so notorious that the name of Arigna became a caution to all who might incline to engage in mining enterprise in Ireland. This is much to be regretted, as Mr. Twigg, in his report to the Directors of the Arigna company, states:-'The ironstone mines have been examined, and the results found extremely favourable. A greater variety of ironstones I never met with, from which, by a proper admixture and proper management, I have no hesitation in saying that pig-iron of the best marks, and fit for foundry work of any kind, may be obtained. The iron mines begin in Rover, and continue for two miles and a half. I measured several of the beds to more than two feet thick, in some places laid bare in the ravines, and in the bed of the Arigna river. We can get any quantity at the shortest notice. There is enough to last two furnaces for 250 years.'

APPENDIX III.

COAL-FIELDS OF FOREIGN COUNTRIES: STATISTICS OF THEIR COAL PRODUCTION AND CONSUMPTION.

IN Prussia the production of coal was 1,182,000 tons in 1824; 3,059,000 in 1844; 6,190,000 in 1854; and in 1865 there were 409 pits at work, producing 18,400,000 tons of black coal of the value of

1 From Mr. Lowther's Report. Berlin, July 28, 1866.

4,954,9861., and employing 89,192 workpeople. There were also at work, the same year, 511 pits of brown coal or lignite, occupying 14,137 work people, and producing 5,000,000 tons, value 710,4377.

There are five large coal-fields in Prussia: viz. two in Upper Silesia, at Beuthen and Waldenburg; two on the Rhine, near Aix-la-Chapelle, and on the Saar; the fifth on the Ruhr, partly in the Rhine province and partly in Westphalia; and there are smaller fields in Silesia, Saxony, and Westphalia.

In 1864 the exports of coal from Prussia were 2,233,228 tons, and the imports 733,220, of which 643,088 were from Great Britain. We have seen that she took some 30 per cent. less coal from Great Britain in 1867; a proof that she is largely developing her own mineral

resources.

A reference to the map of Europe will show what good reason Prussia has to jealously guard her provinces on the left bank of the Rhine, so rich in minerals and coal deposits.

The production of coal in the United States' is rapidly increasing. In 1845 it was 4,400,000 tons; in 1850, 7,900,000; in 1860, 14,577,648; and in 1865 it reached 22,906,939 tons, viz. :

Pennsylvania is by far the largest producer of both anthracite and bituminous coals in the United States. Of the total quantity mined in 1860, all but 1,000 tons of the former, and about three-sevenths of the latter were raised in that State, its production of both being 11,049,534 tons that year, or about 75 per cent. of that of the whole country.

The North American Republic may well look forward to a great future, not only from its immense tracts of fertile land and its largely growing population, continuously supplemented from Europe by so much of the bone and sinew' of the working classes, but also from its vast coal-fields, thus far comparatively so little developed.

This will be best understood from the following approximate statement of the respective areas of coal formation in the principal coalproducing countries:- 3

See Mr. Burnley's Reports. Washington, November 25, 1865, and October 28, 1866.

2 Mined in Rhode Island.

From Taylor's 'Statistics on Coal,' published in 1855.

In 1865 the United States imported 466,307 tons of coal from Canada and other British North American possessions, under the Reciprocity Treaty, and 218,986 tons of coal paying duty, of which 204,804 were from England. In the same year they exported 132,438 tons of domestic coal, of which 71,862 were for Canada.

The following extract from the last report of the Land Office for 1865 will give an idea of the richness of the North American coalfields, and show what an effect the presence or absence of this deposit must have on the prosperity of a country:

:

'The exact depth and value of the coal-measures around Pittsburg 2 it is impossible to figure, but the upper seam alone averages eight feet in thickness. An industrial writer figures the contents at 53,516,430,000 tons, which at two dollars per ton would be worth 107,032,860,000 dollars. The total number of collieries at present in operation in the Pittsburg coal-fields, embracing the whole range which we have described, is 103; hands employed, 6,424; value of lands, 7,589,700 dollars; value of annual coal product, 5,000,000 dollars.

'It is impossible to point out in figures the influence of the coal trade on the birth and growth of Pittsburg. It has opened the way for all our great manufactories, gives employment to nearly 7,000 miners, and twice as many artisans; has made men wealthy, built our churches, educational institutions, and charity schools; in fact, coal is Pittsburg. It built Pittsburg; made it a rich, populous city; put into its coffers such abundant solid wealth that when the rebellion came it lost 30,000,000 dollars without shaking its credit.'

Pittsburg is also rich in iron, which is found in all coal-measures. There are several rolling mills and manufactories, consuming over 100,000 tons of pig iron annually, raised on the spot.

The coal-producing district of Belgium 3 consists of a narrow belt which traverses it from east to west.

1 124,735 square miles east of the Mississippi river, and 8,397 west of the Missouri river.

215,000 square miles in extent. Pittsburg, in Pennsylvania, so called from Fort Pitt, a fort constructed by the British on the site of the city previous to 1760. From the despatch of Lord Howard de Walden to Earl Russell. Brussels, August 8, 1865.

It is divided at the Brook Samson, in Namur, into two principal coalbasins.

The western and more important follows the valley of the Sambre, through Hainault, to Valenciennes and Douai in France; its average breadth being six miles from north to south, but at Charleroi it measures nine miles across. Its total length in Belgium is 95 miles; and its extent 90,051 hectares.1

The eastern coal-basin follows the valley of the Meuse from Namur to Huy and Liége, running from thence into Holland and Prussia. It is 65 miles in length, and extends over 44,062 hectares. The Belgian collieries produced in

The annual exports of coal from Belgium are about 3,000,000 tons, of which nearly the whole quantity is to France; 150,000 tons being sent to Holland and other countries.

Coal is very widely diffused in France, being found in more than half the departments. The principal coal-field is in the Départment du Nord, where it forms part of a coal district fifty leagues in length by two broad, extending into Rhenish Prussia. There are several mines, producing coal of excellent quality, at St. Etienne, near Lyons, department of Loire.

The total production of France in 1865 was 11,297,052 tons, showing an excess of 235,104 over the previous year, viz.:

The imports in 1865 were 7,108,286 tons, showing an increase of 581,839 tons. Of these imports, 3,427,000 tons were from Belgium,2 and 1,455,206 from Great Britain. Nearly the whole of the remainder were from Prussia.

The exports in 1865 were 335,126 tons, showing a decrease of 2,223 tons on the year.

The hectare is equal to two acres, one rood, thirty-five perches.

2 The imports from Belgium are steadily increasing, having been 3,785,711 tons of coal, and 512,594 tons of coke in 1866.