Notices respecting New Books. 385 



ancient Icelandic Saga in which we find this word used in a way 

 which clearly shows that something very different was meant hy it 

 from that heavy mineral which we commonly now call " coal." In 

 the Saga which relates the explorations of Thorfinn Karlsefhi on 

 the American coast, a.d. 1008, we find it related that, when his 

 party were on that part of the coast now known as Rhode Island, 

 they had some encounters with the natives. It is expressly told 

 how these latter came, on one occasion, in their canoes in numbers 

 " as many as if coals had been strewn upon the bay" (svd marl sent 

 kolum vceri sat fyrir hopit). What the sort of coals were which, 

 as floating on the surface of the water, suggested this simile we will 

 not undertake to say, but they were certainly much more likely to 

 have been charcoal or peat than stone coal. The name remains 

 however no less apt at this day than it was at that in its application 

 to the substance, in each case of vegetable origin, which is used as 

 fuel, — whether that substance be the peat, spongy and light, of yes- 

 terday's gi'owth, or the prostrate giant trees, compressed and heavy, 

 which grew and flourished and were embedded in ages of unknown 

 remoteness. It is interesting to find that the following passage will 

 properly include coals of every age, and of every growth, and of 

 every shade of meaning of the word, ancient or modem : — 



" Each stratum of coal is the product of a peculiar vegetation, 

 frequently diff'erent from that which precedes and that which follows 

 it, — vegetations which have given rise to the superior and inferior 

 layers of coal. Each stratum resulting in this manner from a distinct 

 vegetation, is frequently characterized by the predominance of 

 certain impressions of plants ; and the miners, in numerous cases, 

 distinguish the diff'erent strata which they remove by the practical 

 knowledge they possess of the accompanying fossils. Any seam of 

 coal and its overlying rock or slate should consequently contain 

 the various parts of the living plants at the period of its formation : 

 and, by carefully studying the association of these various fossils, 

 which form so many special floras, containing generally but few spe- 

 cies, we may hope to be able to reconstruct these anomalous forms 

 of the ancient world." (P. xc.) 



The value of this volume is greatly enhanced by a series of maps, 

 in which the position and extent of all the ascertained coal-basins 

 throughout the world are laid down. 



It is certainly a remarkable spectacle to see the extraordinary 

 increase of the production and consumption of mineral coal, and the 

 changes which have been wrought in the habits of millions of hu- 

 man beings thereby. Our author tells us that " in Great Britain coal, 

 according to some authorities, was mentioned as occurring in England 

 as early as the ninth century, a.d. 853 [query, stone coal, or such coal 

 as above alluded to in the Saga of Thorfinn Karlsefni] . It was cer- 

 tainly known and applied to various economical purposes in the middle 

 of the twelfth century. In 1239,King Henry III. granted the privilege 

 of digging coals to the good men of Newcastle. But it is little more 

 than 250 years since coal came to be in general use, as fuel, in 

 London. Upon its first introduction there, one or two ships were 



FMl. Mag. S. 3. Vol. 34. No. 230. May 1849. 2 C 



