THE FUELS OF THE FUTURE

It is undeniable that in this country, at least, we are accustomed to regard coal as the chief, and, indeed, the only substance which falls to be considered under the name of fuel. In other countries, however, the case is different. Various materials, ranging from wood to oil, come within the category of material for the production of heat. The question of fuel, it may be remarked, has a social, an antiquarian, and a chemical interest. In the first place, the inquiry whether or not our supplies of coal will hold out for say the next hundred thousand years, or for a much more limited period only, has been very often discussed by sociologists and by geological authorities. Again, it is clear that as man advances in the practice of civilized arts, his dependence upon fuel becomes of more and more intimate character. He not merely demands fire wherewith to cook his food, and to raise his own temperature or that of his dwelling, but requires fuel for the thousand and one manufacturing operations in which he is perpetually engaged. It is obvious that without fuel civilized life would practically come to an end. We cannot take the shortest journey by rail or steamboat without a tacit dependence upon a fuel supply; and the failure of this supply would therefore mean and imply the extinction of all the comforts and conveniences on which we are accustomed to rely as aids to easy living in these latter days. Again, socially regarded, man is the only animal that practices the fire-making habit. Even the highest apes, who will sit round the fire which a traveler has just left, and enjoy the heat, do not appear to have developed any sense or idea of keeping up the fire by casting fresh fuel upon it. It seems fairly certain, then, that we may define man as being a "fuel-employing animal," and in so doing be within the bounds of certitude. He may be, and often is, approached by other animals in respect of many of his arts and practices. Birds weave nest materials, ants make—and maul—slaves, beavers build dams, and other animals show the germs and beginnings of human contrivances for aiding the processes of life, but as yet no animal save man lights and maintains a fire. That the fire-making habit must have dawned very early in human history appears to be proved by the finding of ashes and other evidences of the presence of fire among the remains and traces of primitive man.