Tlie Coals at Liver-Brora do not take fire, 449 



the Kirk officers, on account of a natural child which was born 

 to him (who was still living near Brora in 1812), he gave up his 

 Coal-Lease and Works, to the Salt-Company, and in the year 

 1 769 removed to East Lothian, vvhere the foundation of his well- 

 deserved fame as a writer on Coal Works was laid, and his work 

 compiled. 



I\Ir. Houston succeeded to the management of Inver-Brora 

 Coal-works, for the Salt-Company, merely pursuing the system 

 he had seen under Mr, Williams, until January 1776, when Mr. 

 William Beaumont, a coal-viewer from Limekilns in Fifeshire, 

 being employed to examine and report on these Coal-works, he 

 first pointed out the defects of management that have been 

 mentioned above: — in consequence of which, larger rooms were 

 adopted in working the coal, and a very careful separation of the 

 pyritic dirt-bed was made, as Mr. Beaumont had recommended; 

 and thereupon, the Coals proved free from sulphur in the burn- 

 ing, or of any other defect, as the very ready sale of several car- 

 goes of them at Inverness and Aberdeen, when subsequently sent 

 there by Mr. Houston (as- the produce of a new seam) fully 

 proved; and which account of the quality of this seam was 

 confirmed to me by the Colliers at work at Brora in 1812, v/ho in 

 the previous year had opened the Inver-Brora Coal-seam on the 

 Shore, and raised and burnt this Coal for some tim.e in their houses, 

 and wiiich, when divested of the middle dirt, proved sweet-burn- 

 ing, and of good quality. 



The Salt-Companv would now have put down a steam-engine, 

 and entered on a sj/irited working of this Coal-seam, of which 

 a considerable space remains yet unv/rought ; but their Lease 

 being too near expiring, and the Tutors of the present Countess 

 of Sutherland being unal)le in her minority to grant a new one 

 of sufficient length, they soon after relinquished the concern al- 

 together, and the Colliery at Inver-Brora has since lain un- 

 wrought. 



Vv'hen the Marquis of Stafford and the Countess of Sutherland 

 his Lady, entered on their spirited and general system of im- 

 provements on this fine, but hitherto much-neglected County, 



ill the hollows of tlie thick Coal, taking fire after several months, if the 

 external air he not sooner excluded, is ovvin<j to some distinct bed of dirt 

 between the Coals, that miglit bo found and separated, and leinove this 

 evil, that occasions the waste of so many Coals. At Lasdla, I'ontainc?, 

 nnd otlipr places in the Aubin Coal-field in the department of Avtyron in 

 Franco, the same thin^ happens, see Nicholson's Journal, voh \xix. p. 35?. 

 On Cefii-mawr Colliery rit-hill in Ruabon, in Denbighshire, a large heap 

 of mixed dirty Coals, intended for lime-burning, took fire, after the rain of 

 a thunder-storm in hot weather, in 1809; and other instances rnij^ht be 

 fjiioted, but^ione I think that would show, that Ci^ah thcmsplves, in any in- 

 simif-e take fire spmitaiieoiislv. 



• Vol.45. No. 20G. J«//e 18 1:.. Ff iMr. 



