EARLY HISTORY OF THE USE OF COAL.

New Zealander, Volume 7, Issue 548, 16 July 1851, Page 4

EARLY HISTORY OF THE USE OF COAL.

Bituminous matter, if not the carboniferous system itself, exists abundantly on the banks of the Euphrates. In the basin of the Nilejcoal has been recently detected. It occurs sparingly in some of the states of Greece ; and Theophrastus, in his ' History of Stones/ refers to mineral coal (lithanthrax) being found in Liguria and in Elis, and used by the smiths; the stones are earthy, he j adds, but kindle and burn like wood coals (the anthrax). ! But by none of the Oriental nations does it appear that the vast latent poweta and virtues of the mineral were thus early discovered, so as to render it an object oi commerce or of geological research. What the Romans termed lapis ampelites, is geneially understood to moan our cannel coal, which they used not as fuel, but in making toys, bracelets, and other ornaments j while their carlo, which Pliny describes as vehementer perlucet ■was simply the petroleum or naphta, which issues so abundantly from all the tertiary deposits. Coal is found in Syria, and the term frequently occurs in the Sacred Writings. But there is no reference anywhere in the inspired record as to digging or boring for the mineral —no directions for its use — no instructions as to its constituting a portion of the promised treasures of the land. In their burnt-offerings, wood appears uniformly to Lave been employed ; in Leviticus, the term is used as synonymous with fire, where it is said that 'the priests shall lay the parts in order upon the wood'— that is, on the lire which is upon the altar. And in the same manner for all domestic purposes, wood and charcoal were invariably made use of. Doubtless the ancient Hebrews would be acquainted with natural coal as in the mountains of Lebanon, whither they continually resorted for their timber, seams of coal near Beirout were seen to protude through the supenncumb nt a'rafa in vanous {directions. Still there are no traces cfp.ti or excavations into the rock to show that they duly appreciated the extent and uses of the article For mauy reasons it twould seem that, among modern nations, the primitive Britions were the first to avnil themselves of the valuable combugtible. The word by which it is designated is not of Saxon, but of British extraction, and is still employed to this day by the Irish in their form of o-gual, and in that otkolan by the Cornish. In Yorkshire, stone hammers and hatchets have been found in old mines, showing that the early Britons worked coals before the invasion of the Romans. Manchester, which has risen upon the very ashes of the mineral, and grown to all its it wealth and greatness under the influence of its heat and light, next claims the merit of the discovery. Portions of coal have been found under, or imbebbed in, the saud ofa Roman way, excavated some yeais ago for the consttucUon of a bouse, and which at the rime were ingeniously conjectured by the local antiquaries to have been collected

for the use of the gam&on stationed on the route of these warlike invaders at Mancenion, or the Place of Tents. Certain it is that fragments of coal are being constantly in the district, washed out and brought down by the Medlock and other streams, which break from the mountains through the coal strata. The attention of the inhabitants would in this way be the more early and readily attracted by the glistening substance. Nevertheless, for long after coal was but little valued or appreciated, turf and wood being: tbe common articles o£ | consumption throughout the country. About the I middle of the ninth century, a grunt of land was made ! by the Abbey of Peterborough, under the lestriction of certain payments in kind to the monastery, among which are specified sixty carts of wood, and as showing their comparative worth, only twelve carts of pit coal. Towards the end of the thirteenth century, Newcastle is said to have traded in tbe article, and by a charter of Henry 111., of date i 284, a license is granted to the burgesses to dig for the mineral. About this period, coals for the first time began to be imported into London, but were made use of only by smiths, brewers, dyers, and other artisans, when, in consequence of thebmoke being regarded as very injurious to the public health, parliament petitioned the king, Edward 1., to piohibit burn* mg of coal, on the ground of being an intoleiable nuisance. A proclamation was granted, conformable to the prayer of the petition ; and ihe most severe inquisitoiial measures were adopted to restrict or altogether abolish the use of the combustible, by fine, imprisonment, and destruction of the furnaces and workshops ! They were again brodght into common use in the time of Charles 1., and have continued to increase steadily with the extension of the arts and manufactures, and the advancing tide of population, till now, in the metropolis and subnrbs, coals are annually consumed to the amount of about three millions of tons. The use of coal in Scotland seems to be connected with the rise of tbe monasteries Under the regime of domestic rule at Dunfermline, coals were worked in the year 1291 — at Dysart and other places along the Fife coast, about half a century later — and generally in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries the inhabitants were assessed in coals to the churches and chapels, which, after the Reformation, have still continued to be paid in many parishps. Boetloius records that in his time the inhabitants of Fife and the Lotbians dug 'a black stone,' which, when kmdeled gave out heat sufficient to melt iron.— Rev Dr. Andei son's Course of Cieaticn,