563 
sion of various opinions and the propounding of various 
schemes of improvement through the ordinary channels 
by which public attention can be attracted. Some perhaps 
sound, whilst others have possessed a visionary and imprac- 
ticable quality only. 
It would be difficult to over-estimate the national import- 
ance of the mining interests of this country, and particularly 
that department of mining enterprise which allies itself to 
the discovery and winning of coal; and the rapidity with 
which the coal trade is being developed, to meet the growing 
requirements of our own, as well as of other countries, to 
which the commodity is exported, originates a duty which I 
fear is but too wofully neglected, of adapting all the ap- 
pliances of colliery working to the altered circumstances, — 
which greater vigour imparted to the trade, and more ex- 
tended demand on our natural resources, of necessity gives 
rise to. 
Half a century ago, colliery workings were carried on at 
comparatively shallow depths ; and we now find that most of 
our large establishments, such as Low Moor, Bowling, and 
Elsecar, have been planted in localities where valuable mineral 
seams have come to the surface, or laid at a moderate depth 
only below it. For a long period of their earlier history the 
operations of acquiring supplies of coal were, therefore, 
carried on with far less risk and difficulty than were 
ultimately to be contended against. Besides which, the 
force of competition, which now strains the last efforts of 
economy, had not then been felt, as urging on to the recovery 
of every particle of coal, from any given area, with the least 
possible expenditure of capital and labour. Time, in its 
onward flight, has added to the steady and ceaseless demands 
of the age — one after another have been taken the great 
strides of mechanical progress — and the century which has 
now passed has witnessed the steam-engine, cradled in tiny 
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