162 



He contends, that the meaning of Theophrastus is evidently, 

 that they kindle and burn like wood coals, or, as we call it, charcoal ; 

 that being, he remarks, the genuine and determinate sense of the 

 word avQpot% in the other works of this author, in those of Pliny, 

 and of all the other old naturalists. Even the more correct of the 

 moderns, when they would express what we call pit coal, the sub- 

 stance which he contends is here described by this author, never 

 use the words v0pa or carbo alone, but always carbo-fossilis, and 



Another passage of the same author seems also evidently to ap- 

 ply to coals : he relates, that some of the more brittle stones become 

 as it were burning coals, when put into fire, and continue so a long 

 time. Of this kind are those about Bena, a town in Thracia ; found 

 in mines, and washed down by the torrents ; for they will take fire 

 on throwing burning coals on them, and continue burning so long 

 as any one blows on them; afterwards they will deaden, and may 

 after that be made to burn again : they are therefore of long conti- 

 nuance, but their smell is troublesome and disagreeable *. 



Unless it be admitted that coals were known to Theophrastus, 

 according to the opinion of Sir John Hill, we may, I believe, 

 assert, that we have no proof of their having been known to the 

 Greeks, or to the early Romans. The Latin does not even possess 

 a name for this substance. Nor indeed is it to be wondered at 

 that they should be thus ignorant of it, if, as is observed by the 

 learned writers of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, there are, in fact, 

 no beds of it in the compass of Italy : the great line of that fuel 

 seeming to sweep away round the globe, from north-east to south- 

 west ; not ranging at a distance even from the south-easterly parts 

 of our island, as is generally imagined, but actually visiting Bra- 

 bant and France, and yet avoiding Italy. It has been inferred 



* Theophrastus on Stones, p. 53. 



