36 
spores and elaters of equisetum and marchantia, prothallus of fern 
and the potato fungus. 
Mr. Davies exhibited specimens of the rare lichen, Collema 
dermatinum, which appears to be a form of C. furvum ; a fertile speci-= 
men of the little understood Collema Ceranoides, from West Sussex ; 
Leptogium Schraderi from Woolstonbury Hill; and a fertile Bryum 
Donianwm from near Chichester. This latter plant is seldom found 
fertile in this country, It is common in Italy, and appears to wander 
along the shores of the Atlantic, always being found near the coast. 
APRIL 13TH. 
ORDINARY MEETING.—MR. T. W. WONFOR ON 
“WHAT IS COAL?” 
The word coal appeared to have been applied to any burning or 
glowing substance ; thence to the substance from which a glowing heat 
could be obtained—such as wood or peat. When this glowing had 
died out of the live coal, the term charcoal,—charred or burnt coal,— 
was applied. In course of time, the mineral substance we designate 
as coal came into use, and the terms sea-coal, or ‘‘sea-borne coal,” 
stone coal, and pit coal were used to distinguish it from other coal or 
heat-producing substances. In process of time the original idea or 
distinction was lost, and the term coal was applied only to some one or 
other form of the black substances dug out of the bowels of the earth, 
thus leading to the now opposite ideas, wood fire and coal fire, while 
coal, acted upon by heat to drive off its volatile products, was called 
cooked coal or ‘‘ coke.” 
Though some had suggested the use of coal by the Romans in 
Britain, the only connection existing between them and coal was the 
fact that our Wallsend coal took its name from that mine being near the 
termination of the Roman Wall,—hence Wall’s End Mine. We had 
certain evidence of coal being worked at Newcastle early in the 13th 
century ; of its being prohibited as an article of fuel in and near 
London in 1306 ; of its becoming an article of commerce about 1381 ;. 
of its limited use in the time of Henry VIII, when it was allowed 
—— 
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