largest single tonnage factor in international trade; 70 per
cent of the pre-war tonnage of outgoing cargoes from England was coal.

=World production and trade.= The great coal-producing countries of the
world border the North Atlantic basin. The United States produces about
40 per cent of the world's total, Great Britain about 20 per cent, and
Germany about 20 per cent. Other countries producing coal stand in about
the following order: Austria-Hungary, France, Russia, Belgium, Japan,
China, India, Canada, and New South Wales. There is similarity in the
major features of the distribution of coal production and of iron ore
production. The great centers of coal production--the Pennsylvania and
Illinois fields of the United States, the Midlands district of England,
and the lower Rhine or Westphalian fields of Germany--are also the great
centers of the iron and steel industries of these countries. As in the
case of iron ore, there is rather a striking absence of important coal
production in the southern hemisphere and in Asia. A significant item in
the world's distribution of coal supplies is England's world-wide system
of coaling stations for shipping.

The principal coal-producing countries all have large reserves of coal.
Outside of these countries the world's most important reserves are in
China, which may be looked to for great future development. For the most
part, except for the probable Chinese development, it is likely that
countries now producing most of the coal will continue to do so in the
future, and that outlying parts of the world will continue to be
supplied mainly from these countries.

The quantity and distribution of the coal reserves of the world have
been estimated with perhaps a greater degree of accuracy than those of
any other mineral resource. From these estimates it appears that the
North American continent contains about half of the world reserves
(principally in the United States, with lesser amounts in Canada) and
Asia about one-fourth (principally in China, with some in India). Europe
contains only one-sixth of the world total, chiefly in the area of the
former German Empire and in Great Britain, with smaller quantities in
Russia, Austria-Hungary, France, and Belgium. Australasia (New South
Wales), Africa (British South Africa), and South America (Chile, Brazil,
Peru, and Colombia), together contain less than a tenth of the total
reserves. Coal being one of the great bases for modern industr