HISTORY OF STAFFORDSHIRE. [129 



uiingham, Dudley, Wolverhampton, Sioux-bridge, Walsall, Wednes- 

 bury, Bilston. &c. ; and the surrounding counties are, by means of 

 numerous canals, supplied with the comfort and benefit of fuel, 

 as well as lime, iron, and the other productions of these mines. 



By an examination of the country, from actual survey, under 

 the direction of experienced miners, the coal country was found to 

 extend over about 60 square miles, of which one-half, including 

 Bilston, extends southward to Brierley Hill, and Amblecot, near 

 Stourbridge, which may be about seven or eight miles in length, 

 and four in breadth. This tract of land contains beds of coal ten 

 yards in thickness, through which the Birmingham canal, with its 

 several branches, passes ; also the Netherton and Stourbridge ca- 

 nals, the Dudley tunnel, and Lord Dudley's canal, including the 

 townships of Bilston, Darlaston, Wednesbury, Dudley, Rowley, 

 Oldbury, Tipton, Sedgeley, Netherton, part of Westbromwich, and 

 the collieries about Dudley-wood, Brettel-lane, Amblecot, Brierley 

 Hill, and the Lye, near Stourbridge. The abundance of coal, 

 iron-stone, lime-stone, and clay, together with the intercourse 

 opened by canals to distant parts, and sea-ports, has induced 

 the establishment of iron furnaces, forges, founderies, and other 

 extensive manufactories, and given employment to a vast number 

 of smiths, and other workmen, in making guns, locks, screws, and 

 above all, nails, of which the quantity manufactured here jexceeds 

 all others in the known world. 



Besides the above, there are other thinner beds of coal, of four, 

 six, and eight feet in thickness, extending northwards from Bilston 

 and Darlaston, through Essington-wood, Pelsall, and Brown-hills, 

 to Cannock-heath, and are at least of equal extent to the thicker 

 beds before-described. It was calculated, about the year 1800, 

 that the whole coal land of this district was 40,000 acres, and 

 that the consumption from the beginning had not been more than a 

 tenth of the whole. 



The thin mine of coal last-mentioned commences near the ter- 

 mination of the ten-yard coal, which there ceases and crops-out, 

 that is, rises abruptly to the surface of the ground, and appears no 

 more. This district of thin coal is intersected by the line of the 

 Wyrley and Essington Canal, which, with its different branches, 

 passes through its whole length, and into the lime-stone strata of 

 Rushall, and Hay-head, north-east of Walsall. 



To return to the district of thick coal : A range of lime-stone 

 mountains rise on the west side of this district, extending, from 



R 



