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Show United States Is World's Largest Coal Producer Has Over One-Half of World's Underground Under-ground Supply. Big Increase In Our Exportation In Recent Years. partment of Commerce as "the mar- ket value at port and date of exportation'1 expor-tation'1 advanced in the case of anthracite an-thracite from an annual average of $5.30 per ton in 1913 to $11.10 per ton in 1924, while bituminous advanced from $2.53 per ton in 1913 to $4.64 in 1924. Bituminous, or "soft" coal as it is frequently called, forms by far the argest share of our coal exports, the total quantity of bituminous coal ex- ' ported in 1924 having been 15 million tons and of anthracite only 3 million tons. Our production of bituminous coal is of course much larger than of anthracite, the total bituminous produced pro-duced in the United States in 1924 being estimated at 438 million tons and of anthracite only 82 millions. About two-thirds of the anthracite coal produced in the United States is used for domestic heating, while only about one-sixth of the bituminous is used for domestic heating, the remainder re-mainder for industrial and transportation transpor-tation purposes. The United States is the world's largest coal producer and has also the world's largest underground sup-uly sup-uly says the Trade Record of The National City Bank of New York. The coal produced from the mines of the United States in 1924 was 520 million tons against 273 millions in Great Britian, 45 millions in France, 35 million in Czecho-Slovakia, 32 millions in Poland, and 30 millions in Japan. Not only are we the world's largest lar-gest producer, adds the Trade Record but we, have the world's largest underground un-derground stock or "reserve", as the geologists call it. The world's known coal "reserve," or underground stock of coal, was estimated by a geological geologi-cal congress in 1913 as follows: United States 3,854 billion tons, Canada Can-ada 1,234 billions, China 996 billions, Germany 423 billions, United Kingdom King-dom 190 billions. This estimate of geologists puts the known underground under-ground coal stock of the United States at 52 per cent of the world's total, most of which exists in the northern part of the globe, the known coal supply sup-ply south of the equator being but a small fraction of that in the northern section, chiefly in North America and Europe. Our distinction of coal is world wide. Canada, although having a . very large underground "reserve" still finds it more convenient to buy from the United States than to dig it out of the ground, especially in view of her limited labor supplies, and our coal exports to Canada in 1924 were 11 million tons; to Europe as a whole, 1,350,000 tons; South America Am-erica approximately 1,000,000; to Brazil, 759,000; and to Cuba, 535,000 tons. Despite this large increase in our exports of coal in recent years the United States still holds second rank among the world exporters, the British Bri-tish coal exportations since the close of the World War having been about twice as great as those from the United States. This excess of exports from Great Britian as compared with the United States, a larger producer, is due in part to the fact that Great Britian's "next-door neighbors" on the continent of Europe are large importers im-porters of coal and naturally draw their imports from the nearest source of supply, while the fact that British outbound vessels loaded with manufactures can carry coal at practically pract-ically ''ballast" rates facilitates British Brit-ish sales in overseas countries. World production of coal, adds the Trade Record, was 726,000,000 tons in 1900 and 1,350,000,000 ' in 1924. Our share of world production in 1900 was 34 per cent, and in 1924, 39 per cent. The recognition which the world has given to American coal has increased in-creased in recent years. Our coal exports ex-ports have advanced from seven million mil-lion tons in the fiscal year 1900 to 13 millions in the calendar year 1910, 17 millions in 1914, 24 millions in 1918 but declined (with the post-war increase in-crease in European production) to 18 million tons in the calendar year 1924. The exports gained slowly up to the opening of the World War, which checked European production and caused a big jump in American exports, ex-ports, which however, declined when European mines resumed their normal nor-mal outturn following the close of the war. The value of coal exports from the United States advanced from 54 million dollars in 1914 to 120 millions in 1919, 168 millions in 1921, and 105 millions in the fiscal year 1925. The total value of coal exported from the United States since the opening of the World War is over one billion dollars. Prices meantime have advanced advan-ced , as is true of practically all other commodities. The export prices of coal which are stated by the De- |
