JF Ptak Science Books Quick Post
In the last 24 hours I've come across two antiquarian outlooks on the longevity of the world coal supply after not having seen hardly anything of the sort written in the 19th century. (The 20th century, even in its first decade or two, is another story.) The first was an article by the engineer John Ericsson, who wrote on the temperature of the heliosphere of the Sun in Nature for 1871 (and came quite close) which led to an earlier paper from 1868 in which he hypothesized a short lifespan of coal and advocated for forms of "solar energy". Then came this article from 1859 (in the month of publication of On the Origin of Species which hypothesized a much more abundant future for coal deposits, which the writer figured to be 36,000 years. Unfortunately his terms aren't very well defined--was he addressing the coal production of Prussia or Europe or the world when discussing "the quantity of coal dug in 1857"? When stating "the lands from which the coal is procured" may be 8,000 square miles, did that mean an 8,000 square mile swath of Germany, or 8,000 square miles of mined coal in Europe, or etc.? New Hampshire is about 8,000 square miles, and the entire Prussian Monarchy was about 110,000 square miles, so maybe that meant packets of mining surfaces here and there?
I don't know. But it was an interesting problem the writer set to work on, even though he didn't really do the necessary work on the parameters or what the future might hold in reference to coal usage. The writer also painted several nice mental images in trying to visualize the great numbers involved with coal production and consumption. Here's the article in full:
Source: Journal of the Franklin Institute, Philadelphia, Vol 38 (third series), July-December 1859, with text illustrations, and one (movable) plate, 430 pp.
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