The World's Coal LARGEST PRODUCTION YET RECORDED.

Progress, Volume I, Issue 4, 1 February 1906, Page 90

The World's Coal LARGEST PRODUCTION YET RECORDED.

According to the Board of Trade's annual report, the production of coal m the United Kingdom, in 1904, amounted to 232,428,000 tons, m Germany, 120,818,000 tons, m France 33,838,000 tons, m Belgium 23,507,000, tons and m the United States 314,563,000 tons. The production in. 1904 m the United Kingdom and Germany was greater than m any previous year. Last year the United Kingdom exported 65,000, 000 tons, Germany 21,631,000 tons, and the United States 8,574,000 tons, the exports in each case being the greatest recorded. The total known coal production of the world (exclusive of brown coal or lignite) is now about 790 millions tons per annum. Of this Britain produces rather less and the United States rather more than a third. Compared witth the population, the British production of coal still surpasses that in the United States. It amounts to nearly 5^ tons per head; in the United States it is under four tons per head. The average value per ton of coal taken at the collieries m 1903 was : In the United Kingdom, 7/8 ; in Germany, 8/7^ ; France, 11 /3J ; Belgium, 10/4^ ; the United States, 6/7. These prices represent a fall of about yd per ton m the United Kingdom, of 3d per ton in Germany, and t;d per ton m France, but a rise of 3d per ton m Belgium, and lid per ton m the United States. The provisional figures available for 1904 indicate a further fall of 6d per ton in the United Kingdom, and id per ton 111 Germany, whilst m the United States there has also been a fall of about 8d per ton. The average value of coal in Great Britain m 1904 was less than in any year since 1898. In the United States the enormously increased output of recent years has had its effect on prices, which, though slightly lower in 1904 than in 1903, are still higher than in any other year since 1888.

Messrs. Whitaker Bros., Wellington, forward ustheir catalogue of technical books. This firm hasan extensive collection of works on engineering and the allied subjects.. ******

t The Indian Government is considering a plan to designate certain types of passenger cars on Indian railways which can be easily adapted for use as ambulance cars m times of emergency by attaching to the side of each car an iron plate bearing a large red cross. One scheme which has been suggested is to have a reversible plate bearing on one side a small cross for the purpose of distinguishing these cars in ordinary service, and on the other side a large and prominent red cross to be placed outward when the car is in use as an ambulance.

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