EMBLETON: NOTES ON ANCIENT COAL MINING. 
263 
pedestals. There were many other curious floors found among the 
ruins, and some coal ashes. 
When, in 1833, the eastern gateway (of the Station Cilurnum, 
The Chesters) was freed from the rubbish that then encumbered it, 
its eastern portal was found to have been walled up, and converted 
into a separate appartment, on the floor of the chamber thus formed 
there was found a cart-load of fossil coal. 
The following extract is from the " Roman Wall " by the Rev. 
J. Collingwood Bruce, L.L.D., &c. " When the lower reservoir of the 
Newcastle Water Company, in the neighbourhood of South Beuwell 
(the Condurcum of the Romans) was formed in 1858 some ancient 
coal workings were exposed, the author examined them, and though 
he and those whom he consulted saw no reason to suppose that they 
were not Roman, no coin, lamp, or shred of samian, was discovered 
to give authority to the conjecture. The seam of coal was two feet 
thick. It was wrought by shafts sunk to the depth of twelve or 
fifteen feet and at a distance of forty or fifty-five yards from one 
another. Lines of excavation radiated in every direction from the 
bottom of the. shafts. The coal crops out on the bank between the 
workings and the river Tyne so that the mine could be drained by 
means of an adit. 
The instances of ancient coal mining given above were in seams 
which outcropped on the banks of the river Tyne, and were drained 
by adits. Leland, in his Itinerary, has the following passage: — ''The 
vaynes of the se coles ly sometyme upon clives of the se, as round 
about Cocket Island and other shors, and they as some will be called 
se coals, but they are not so good as the coles that are digged in the 
upper part of the lande." 
Under the term " Sea Coal" a considerable trade was established 
with London, and it became an article of consumption then. How- 
ever an impression arose that the smoke arising therefrom contamin- 
ated the atmosphere and was injurious to the public health; and it is 
said that the nice dames in London would not come into any house 
or room where sea coals were burned, or willingly eat of the meat 
that was either sod or roasted with sea coal fire. 
The subsequent extracts from Harrison's Description of England 
