Account of the principal Coal-Mines in France , 253 
mical means of transport. It is by means of subterranean navi- 
gation, by means of canals and sluices lined with iron, and con- 
structed in the very interior of these mines ; by means of in- 
clined planes, artfully managed, in which the friction of the 
carriages is almost annihilated, by plates of cast-iron on which 
they roll, and which allow them to be left to their own motion 
for several miles, that the coals are transported even to the place 
of embarkation ; and it is by these economical proceedings, 
which are a thousand times repeated every day, that the fuel in 
question comes to be delivered in England to the consumers at 
a trifling expence. 
The Newcastle mines alone, which are in reality the most 
productive works known, employ more than sixty thousand in- 
dividuals, and annually produce thirty-six millions of quintals. 
France contains no coal-works of so gigantic a nature as those 
which exist in England ; but one would have a false idea of its 
richness in this respect, were he to judge from the small num- 
ber of coal-mines that are wrought on a large scale. This ap- 
parent smallness depends upon the circumstance that the con- 
sumption of coal is very limited, as a deplorable prejudice, and 
an adherence to ancient custom, have hitherto prevented the use 
of this combustible in such of our manufactories as consume the 
greatest quantity of charcoal, the great furnaces. 
About forty departments are known in France which contain 
beds of combustible substances belonging to coal, namely, the 
x\llier, the High and Low Alps, the Ardeche, the Aude, the 
Aveyron, the Low Rhine, the Mouth of the Rhone, the Calva- 
dos, the Cantal, the Correze, the Creuze, the two Sevres, the 
Dordogne, the Finistere, the Gard, the Upper Rhine, the Up- 
per Loire, the Upper Marne, the Upper P^oiie, the Herault, 
the Isere, the Lower Loire, the Lot, the Maine and Loire, the 
Maude, the Moselle, the Nicore, the Nord, the Pas de Calais, 
the Puy-de-Bome, the Eastern Pyrenees, the Rhone, the Tarn, 
the Var, and the Vaucluse. 
In reality, several of these deposits are nothing more than 
merely known, and others of them are only wrought to a small 
extent. However, there are already reckoned in France 236 
mines, from which 9 or 10 millions of quintals are annual! y 
VOL, XIV. NO 28. APRIL 1826. R, 
