MINERALS AND MINING. Great Britain has been favored above other European countries in the possession of abundant resources of the two minerals—coal and iron—which are most essen tial to a varied and extensive industrial develop ment. The industrial history of the nation and its present position and outlook are, therefore, intimately connected with the possession and ex ploitation of these resources, particularly coal. They have largely determined the distribution of population (see POPULATION) , have made possi ble the highly developed industrial life, and have proved the chief basis of the extraordinary wealth of the country. The production of these min erals did not attain their great significance until recent times, having been advanced to a promi nent rSle during the industrial revolution of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. They were being produced, however, as early as the Roman period, and are supposed to have been not alto gether unimportant. Following this period little was done until the coming of the Normans, when the industry revived. Collieries were first opened at Newcastle in 1238. Their proximity to the sea made the transportation of coal possible, and it was shipped to London and other English towns situated on navigable streams.
In the beginning of the seventeenth century coal was used in the smelting of iron, but the primitive methods of mining then, particularly the lack of means for pumping water out of the mines, limited its use. The inventions of Watt (e.1770), by eliminating this difficulty. revo lutionized the mining industry, and greatly in creased the possibility of production. The blast furnace method of smelting iron had already been introduced, hut the limited supply of coal, and the governmental prohibition of the use of wood (to prevent total destruction of the forests), im peded the development of this process. With the new supply of fuel, new possibilities opened up in the iron industry, and the increased use of iron in turn created a greater demand for coal. In the later years of the eighteenth century was witnessed a constant succession of improvements —to wit, in mining, in the manufacture of iron, in internal means of communication—all giving increased impetus to the production and use of coal and iron. The annual output of coal in the last years of the eighteenth century is estimated to have exceeded 10,000,000 tons. The introduc tion of the steamboat, about 1812, and of the steam railway, about 1830, not only created a new de mand for coal and iron, but made the domestic and foreign distribution more practicable, thus enormously extending the market for those min erals and their products. The production of coal and iron has increased throughout the nineteenth century, the average annual absolute gain con tinuing undiminished. From the table below, showing the development of mining for the last forty years, the overwhelming importance of coal and iron will be seen.
No country has been comparable to Great Britain in the total product of mines. This is than coal, Great' Britain fares better than it would if the status of the production of the two minerals were reversed.
The above figures are for the entire United Kingdom; but since the Irish coal and iron min ing is insignificant, they are materially correct for Great Britain. Over two-thirds of the entire product is mined in England, the remainder being almost equally divided between Scotland and Wales. The principal productive districts, be ginning at the north, are, the Scottish Low lands, or the neighborhood of Glasgow, the Newcastle District, the two fields on the east and west slopes of the Pennine range in south west Yorkshire, and to the southeastward and in eastern Lancashire, the Staffordshire fields farther south, and the South Wales field occupy ing Glamorganshire and parts of the adjoining counties. The third of these districts produces the largest output, the yield in 1900 being: Yorkshire, 28,247,249 tons; Lancashire, 24,842, 208; Derbyshire, 15,243,031; and Nottingham shire, 8,626,177. For the same year, the New castle district produced as follows: Durham, 34, 800,719 tons; Northumberland, 11,514,521. The yield of Scotland was: Lanarkshire, 17,174,247; all the more remarkable since it includes virtual ly neither of the precious metals which in many other countries have constituted so large an item. Until recent years the annual output of other countries was almost insignificant in comparison. In 1820 Great Britain was producing two and one-half times as much coal as the rest of the civilized world, and as late as 1840 it was pro ducing more iron ore than all other countries combined. The last half-century, however, has witnessed a decided change in the relative im portance of Great Britain's mines. Other coun tries, notably the United States and Germany, have been developing their mined product still more rapidly during this period. The United States first excelled Great Britain in the latter part of the nineteenth century and is constantly increasing its lead. Great Britain's iron output was first surpassed by the United States in 1890, and its coal in 1899. In 1900 the production of coal in the United States about one-fifth greater than in the United Kingdom. Germany now produces almost as much iron and about three-fifths as much coal. The output of the iron mines is insufficient for British local needs; and increasing quantities, equaling in value that pro duced at home, are imported, chiefly from Spain; while coal for the whole period has been ex ported in increasing quantities, the amount reach ing 46,098,000 tons in 1900. or twice that of 1880. Iron being much more easily imported other districts, 15,937,857. Wales, mainly Gla morganshire, together with Monmouthshire, pro duced 42,000,000 tons; while the production of Ireland was only 124,699 tons. Iron ore is obtained most abundantly in connection with the coal measures of Yorkshire and other regions. Red hematite ores are obtained in north Derby shire and in Cumberland. The total production of pig iron from native and imported ores in 1900 was 8,959,691 long tons.