164 



use, in this part of the British empire, until the reign of Charles the 

 First ; and even in Scotland, almost proverbially poor in vegetable, 

 and rich in fossil fuel, it was at a very late period that coal was 

 commonly used ; for about the middle of the fifteenth century, 

 when uEneas Sylvius visited this island, he saw in Scotland poor 

 people, in rags, begging at the churches, and receiving for alms 

 pieces of stone, with which they went away contented. This spe- 

 cies of stone, he says, whether impregnated with sulphur, or what- 

 ever other inflammable substance it may be, they burn in place of 

 wood, of which their country is destitute*. 



Mr. Arnotsaysf, " Coal certainly was not discovered in the mid- 

 dle of the twelfth century, and it was as certainly known in the be- 

 ginning of the thirteenth century. In the Leges Burgorum^:, which 

 were enacted about A.D. 1146, a particular privilege is granted to 

 those who bring fuel into boroughs. Wood, turf, and peat, are 

 particularly mentioned, but with respect to coal there is a dead 

 silence. But in the year 1234, Henry III. of England renewed a 

 charter which his father had given to the inhabitants of Newcastle ; 

 and in this renovated charter he grants, upon their supplication, to 

 the persons in whose favour the charter was conceived, licence to 

 dig coal upon payment of ^.100 a year, which is the earliest 

 mention of coal in the island/' And Boetius||, in his Description 

 of Scotland, his native country, written in the beginning of the six- 

 teenth century, says, " There are black stones also digged out 

 of the ground, which are very good for firing ; and such is their 

 intolerable heat, that they resolve and melt iron, and therefore 

 are very profitable for smiths and such artificers as deal with other 

 metals/' 



In most countries of Europe has this valuable substance been 



* jEneas Sylvii Opera, p. 443. t History of Edinburgh. 



$ Leg. Burg. c. 38. || Boetii Scotorum Regni Descriptio, p. 10. 



