42 The Coal Commissioner’s Report. [January, 
William de Vetereponte granted to the monks of Holyrood, 
““totam decimam de carbonaris meo de Carriden.” ‘This is 
the name of a small brook flowing into the Firth of Forth, 
about three miles north of the ancient palace of Lin- 
lithgow. This was in the time of William the Lion, 
during whose reign the monks of Newbattle worked coal 
on the margin of the Esk. Arthur Dobbs, author of an 
‘‘ Essay on the Trade of Ireland,” writing in 1728, says, 
““We have of late discovered coal mines in the counties of 
Cork and Leitrim.” 
Having thus, in the briefest possible manner, touched 
upon the early history of the coal-fields of the United 
Kingdom, we pass on now to notice the amount of coal that 
has been raised from time to time. The estimated pro- 
duction of the whole kingdom is thus given in the Commis- 
sioner’s Report :-— 
‘“‘In the three centuries before 1800, it is computed that 
not less than 850 millions of tons of coals were raised from 
the coal-fields of the kingdom. During the next fifty years 
there was a constant and steady increase in the production, 
and fully two thousand millions of tons of coal were 
extracted. Up to this time the records of coal produce 
were most imperfect, and it was not until the year 1854 that 
reliable returns have been in existence. The average pro- 
duction in 1851, 1852, and 1853, may be taken at 50,875,000 
tons per annum. In the years 1854 to 1869, both inclusive, 
1,343,793,705 tons were raised, which added to the figures 
above given, and estimating the return for 1870 at 110,000,000 
tons, show that we have “already drawn from our original 
stores of fuel not less than 4,456,000,000 tons* of fuel.” 
Space will not admit of our entering into any minute 
detail regarding the consumption of coal, but it may be 
stated that, of the 1074} millions of tons raised in 1869, 
32,446,506 tons were employed in iron manufacture; 
25,327,213 tons in manufactures; 3,277,562 for steam navi- 
gation, 2,027,500 for railways, locomotives, &c.; 18,481,572 
in domestic consumption ; and 9,775,470 tons were exported. 
Large portions of some of our coal-fields lie at a greater 
depth than has yet been reached in mining, and it is consi- 
dered that the increase in temperature which accompanies 
increase of depth is the only cause which it is necessary to 
consider as limiting the depths at which it may be practi- 
cable to work coal. In this country the temperature of the 
earth is constant at a depth of about 50 feet, and at that 
* The Report says 4300 millions of tons, but in this figure the returns for 
the three years 1851 to 1853 appear to have been omitted. 
