duly appreciated the
extent and uses of the article.... For many reasons it would seem that,
among modern nations, the primitive Britons were the first to avail
themselves of the valuable combustible. 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 of _kolan_ 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 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 imbedded in the sand of a Roman way,
excavated some years ago for the construction of a house, and which at the
time were ingeniously conjectured by the local antiquaries to have been
collected for the use of the garrison 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 the common articles of consumption
throughout the country. About the middle of the ninth century, a grant of
land was made by the Abbey of Peterborough, under the restriction 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. Toward the end of the thirteenth century, Newcastle is said
to have traded in the article, and by a charter of Henry III., of date
1284, 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 the smoke being regarded as very injurious to the
public health, parliament petitioned the king, Edward I., to prohibit the
burning of coal, on the ground of being an intolerable nuisance. A
proclamation was granted, conformable to the prayer of the petition; a