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(6) sixthly, Coal-getting and Drilling Machinery; (7) 
seventhly, Miscellaneous Improvements; and lastly, the 
Probable Future of Deep Mining. 
(1) EARLY RECORDS AND GROWTH OF DEEP MINING. 
It will give an idea of the rapid growth of coal mining, 
if attention is called to the earliest records of coal-getting 
in this country. Among the first are the " Basse tt Work- 
ings" inDui'ham and Northumberland, described by Horsley 
as a Coaling (colliery), and stated to have been worked hy 
the Romans. In the " Bolden Book," published in the reign 
of Henry II., there are two references to coal at Wearmouth, 
then called Yernouth ; and at Counden, as stated by Bishop 
i^idsey, a grant of land was made in 1180 to a collier, 
for providing coals for a smith's workshop. 
Another record of the early knowledge of coal, dated 
1395, was inspected by the writer in the " Rolls of Whitley 
Abbey," in which it is stated that coals were shipped from 
Sunderland, and that one William Reed was paid 13s. 4d. 
for four chaldrons, or, one hundred and two hundred weights 
of the recognised measures of that district. Further notices 
of early coal-getting will be found in Hull's " Coal-fields," 
Chap. I. 
Tables of the area and production of the various Coal- 
fields of the world wiU be found in Smyth's ''Coal and 
Coal Mining," and the figures there given show the wonder- 
ful growth of Coal-mining, especially in this country, which 
at the present time supplies nearly half the entire produc- 
tion of the world. 
(2) DEEP MINES. 
The following table gives the depths and situations of the 
deepest mines in the world up to the present time, arranged 
