Democratic Sentinel, Volume 2, Number 16, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 31 May 1878 — Coal in the British Islands. [ARTICLE]

Coal in the British Islands.

Last year the output of coal in Great Britain and Ireland was 132,000,000 tons. A cubic mile is equal to 147,198,000,000 cubic feet,and, allowing 29 i cubic feet of coal in the solid to weigh a ton, we have 5,000,000,000 tons of coal in a cubic mile, and this is a greater weight than has yet been raised in the British islands. According to the most trustworthy statistics, the end of 1878 will just complete the first cubic mile of coal, exclusive of waste in mining.— l*on (London). A gentleman recently returned from a winter residence in the South of France was much struck with the total absence of bird life in those localities— Cannes, Nice, Mentone, etc. You may walk for miles in the pine woods and olive groves around without ever hearing a solitary bird sing. The cause of this is readily explained. Thousands of little birds (thrushes and other song birds, and also songless birds of different kinds) are slaughtered every day to supply the tabie d’hotes of the different hotels in the above resorts, and no menu is considered complete without a dish of them.