Since the war, there has been a gradual resumption of England's export of coal along old lines of international trade. The German overseas export trade has not been reëstablished, and cannot be for a long time to come if Germany fulfills the terms of the Peace Treaty. Indeed, because of slow recovery in output of German coal, there is yet considerable lag in the supply available for European countries. The terms of the Peace Treaty lessened the territory of German coal reserves and required considerable additional contributions of coal to be delivered to France, Belgium, Luxemburg, and Italy.
The increased export of coal from the United States during the war is likely to be in part continued in the future, although the great bulk of the United States production will in the future, as in the past, be absorbed locally. Most of the coal in the United States available for export is higher in volatile matter than the British and German export coal. This quality will in some degree be a limiting factor in exportation. On the other hand, it may result in wider introduction of briquetting, coking, and other processes, which will tend to improve the local industry and be conservational in their effect.
Japan will doubtless hold some of the Asiatic coal market gained during the war.
International coal relations are further discussed in Chapter XVIII.[17]
=Production in the United States.= The main features of the distribution of coal supplies in the United States are:
(1) Localization of the anthracite production and reserves in a limited area in the Lawton region of Pennsylvania. Low-grade anthracite coal also occurs in Rhode Island, North Carolina, Colorado, and Idaho.
(2) Localization of the bituminous production in the eastern and interior states of Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Kentucky. The principal reserves of bituminous coal occur in the same provinces, but important additional reserves are known in Texas, in North and South Carolina, and in the Rocky Mountain and Pacific Coast provinces.
(3) The existence of large tonnages of subbituminous coal in the west, which have not been mined to any extent.
(4) The existence of large fields of lignite in the Gulf Coast region, and in the Northern Plains region, which have not been mined.