May 1, 1865.] THE TECHNOLOGIST. 



THE CANNEL COAL OF FLINTSHIRE. 449 



another very important element to the question, both on account of its 

 yielding a larger quantity of oily products than any other coal or schale 

 then known, and because there is reason to believe that similar oils had 

 never been before obtained in quantity by the distillation of coal. The 

 Boghead coal and the Eangoon petroleum constituted the first great 

 staples from which commercial mineral oils were produced in England, 

 and before the introduction of the American petroleum, within a com- 

 paratively late period, they were, indeed, the great sources of supply, 

 the manufacture of the Boghead coal being principally, if not entirely, 

 in the hands of James Young and Co., in Scotland, and that of the 

 Eangoon petroleum in those of the house of Sir Charles Price and Co., 

 of London. For many years the Boghead coal was the only substance 

 of the kind from which oils of the desired quality could be extracted. 

 True, the patent of Mr. Young was prohibitory to much enterprise in 

 this direction ; but the known great value of this mineral and the pro- 

 fit attending its manufacture, had excited attention, and many kinds of 

 coal schale had been made the subject of experiment without much suc- 

 cess, when, in 1858, a new variety of cannel coal was discovered at 

 Leeswood Green, in Flintshire, only a few miles distant from Mold. 



The Flintshire coal-field appears to have been worked from a remote 

 period, as both tradition and documentary evidence prove that coals 

 were raised from it as far back as the reign of Edward the Third ; but 

 the extent of the coal-field is limited, as it is estimated to possess not 

 more than about 60,000 acres of area. The coal-seams are compara- 

 tively near the surface of the ground, that of the main coal, which is 

 the principal, and also the deepest worked before the discovery of the 

 cannel coal, not being more than 125 yards below the surface. Indeed, 

 before this discovery it was a rare thing for a coal-pit in this district to 

 exceed 150 yards in depth. 



The discovery of this valuable cannel coal is a remarkable instance 

 of what some may be disposed to regard as a consequence of a general 

 law, that the productions of Nature always present themselves at the 

 moment when the necessity for them begins to be pressing ; and the 

 manner of the discovery was as singular as it was fortunate. 



It seems that the owner or lessee of the Leeswood Green coal-pits, in 

 pursuing some investigations in the old workings, drove a small gal- 

 lery in a point where there had been a complete dislocation of the coal 

 strata, with a rise or upthrow of twenty-five yards in the strata which 

 had been broken away from those in which the gallery was driven. The 

 consequence of the disruption of the coal-seams was to place in opposi- 

 tion, in the point at which the gallery terminated, a series of strata of a 

 different character, and in the lower of these was distinguished a pecu- 

 liar kind of schale, which, from its remarkable appearance, led to a 

 further examination ; and, finally, it proved to be the overlaying schale 

 of a series of cannel strata, together making up a seam several feet in 

 thickness, of, perhaps, the most valuable cannel coal ever discovered in 



