222 Mineral Trades 



He ascribed the increase to the doubling of the population and to the 

 new uses of coal, such as for fuel in chambers and in brickmaking.' 

 A century later, 1776, the importation was 700,000 chaldrons.- A 

 large part of this coal was consumed in the city of London and the 

 rest was distributed into the interior by way of the Thames and its 

 affluents. In this manner were reached the counties of Middle- 

 sex, Hertford, Buckingham, Oxford, Gloucester, Berks, Hampshire, 

 Surrey and Essex.^ In the conduct of this trade there were many 

 loadings and unloacUngs. In the Pool the coal was discharged from 

 the sea-going colliers into coal lighters; from these lighters into the 

 great west-country barges for Oxford or Abingdon ; from these barges 

 into carts and wagons to be carried to the country towns and the con- 

 sumer. The total cost of carriage from Newcastle to the final desti- 

 nation, plus the tax on sea-borne coal, raised the price to live times 

 the original cost at the mine.^ 



Coal-Oivner. 



Coal-owner was the technical name given to the person who sunk 

 the shaft and had the expense of raising the coal." He was the mine 

 owner or lessee, the capitalist employer, mine organizer, and coal- 

 producer. In the larger mines he employed thousands of miners 

 and surfacemen.*^ At the mine's mouth the coal was loaded into 

 wagons which were dragged down an artificial inchned wagon-wa>- 

 with two chaldrons of coal three or four miles to the river's edge and 



the decade; cf. table supra. According to the Hostmen's books the average yearly 

 shipments about 1616 were from 250,000 to 270,000 tons, and about 1627, 300,720 

 tons; comparing this with Petty's estimate for the '30's it is suggested that London 

 received above one-tenth of the total Newcastle shipments. See Surtees, lO.S- 

 7.^. 71. 



I Petty, Pol. Ar., 99 (I, 204 m Hull), .\nderson, Origin, II, 536. The increase 

 in consumption of coal was noticeable a century earlier. Harrison noted the in- 

 crease in the number of chimneys and observed that " theyr greatest trade beginneth 

 nowe to growe from the forge into the kitchin and hall." Harrison, Description, 

 in Hollinshed, Chron. 85, 115. The London ladies opposed the substitution of 

 sea-coal for wood in the fireplaces. Galloway, 24, quoting Howes, 1631. 



- .\nderson, Origin, IV, 321; it was 600,000 chaldrons in 1755; "Essai sur I'etat," 

 120. 



' Postlethwayt, Diet., s. v. British Empire; "Essai sur I'etat," 121. 



'■ Defoe traces the progress of the coal from pit to Western consumer; see Defoe, 

 Com. Eng. Tr., II, 172-3. 



5 Rep. from Com. H. C, X, 541. 



" In 1649 the capitalistic nature of coal-mining had become very evident, for il 

 was said, "one coal-merchant imployeth five hundred or a thousand in his works of 



