Coal Mining Operations at Malmesbury. 



159 



ON SOME 



Ciial fining dD^ratinns at Hatolmn}, 



By Professor J. Btjckman, F.L.S., F.O.S., &c. 



The little Town of Malmesbury is well-known to the antiquary 

 for the remains of its once glorious abbey, its interesting market- 

 cross, and, if I recollect rightly, a cozy hostel, formed out of the 

 ruins of an old conventual building, besides other mediaeval re- 

 liques of great interest. Its inhabitants are a primitive race who 

 derive great satisfaction from a charter, and still better, from a large 

 piece of rich land bequeathed to them by King Athelstan. Now, 

 whether the king with his bequest gave the assurance that, by dig- 

 ging deep, those into whose hands the said land might fall would 

 realize great treasure, or whether some person in digging a well 

 suddenly came upon a black coaly-looking substance in the stratum 

 of clay, does not appear; but we incline to the latter opinion. 

 However this may be, certain it is, that about a century ago, 

 operations for coal-mining were commenced on Malmesbury Com- 

 mon ; the timber of the estate was felled to pay the expenses of a 

 shaft that was sunk and, as report said, coal found. Indeed this 

 latter assertion had been verified over and over again, as young 

 natural philosophers (and they were very young in it) had from 

 time to time collected lumps of carbonaceous matter, black as coal, 

 and which on being brought to the unerring test of experiment — 

 the trial by fire — burnt like like coal; in short, were the true 

 " black diamond." 



Still with this evidence the mining had been abandoned after 

 the sinking of a shaft — and of some money. This latter article, 

 by the way, was supposed to have been raised again by the wary 



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