OP MINERAL COAL. 59 
plied, whilst the smallness of the superficial contents of these 
islands, compared with that of their rival states and kingdoms, on 
the continent, requires a dense population, deriving its subsis- 
tence in part from abroad in exchange for manufactures, to enable 
them to maintain the place they have long held in the scale of 
nations, and to the successful prosecution of almost every kind of 
manufacture, a plentiful supply of fuel is altogether necessary. 
The facilities for water carriage afforded by the seas by which 
they are surrounded, and the rivers and canals by which they are 
traversed, favour greatly the transportation of the coal, to every 
part of the country. It is unpleasant to feel that we are drawing 
from stores of an indispensable material, whose riches are limited, 
which can never be replenished, and which must therefore even- 
tually be exhausted; but it would be unreasonable in a Briton to 
resign himself to melancholy, in view of the final degradation 
that awaits his country, as it is supposed that the present expen- 
diture may continue for a thousand years longer, before the use 
of coal for fuel must be abandoned. 
34. The coal fields of France are much smaller and less nume- 
rous than those of England. They are distributed through an 
elevated, central, and primitive plateau, lying on the west side of 
the Rhone, between the latitudes of 44° and 47°, amongst the 
head waters of the Loire and Garonne. The northernmost is in the 
department of Nievre, the most southern in that of Gard. The 
largest and most valuable is that of St. Etienne, in the department 
of Loire, extending over an area of eighty-seven square miles. 
This furnishes nearly half of the coal that is raised annually in 
France. A coal formation extends across Belgium, from near Aix- 
la-Ghapelle, in a south-westerly direction by Liege, Namur, Char- 
leroi and Mons, to the neighbourhood of Valenciennes, within 
the border of France. East of this, beds of the same mineral 
are fuund in Saxony, Bohemia and Hungary. Italy has no coal. 
It is known to exist in Asia Minor, Syria, India, China, Japan, 
New Holland, Van Dieman's Land, and in some parts of Africa. 
Beds of coal are rare in that part of the United States lying 
east of the Blue Ridge. Anthracite is found at Worcester in 
Massachusetts, and in considerable quantity in Rhode Island ; 
bituminous coal in Virginia, fourteen miles west of Richmond, 
and on the banks of Beep River, Chatham Co. in North Carolina. 
The Virginia coal field occupies a trough in the primary rocks, 
thirty-five miles in length, and eight miles across at the widest 
point. The principal body of the coal lies at the bottom, and 
along the sides of the trough, either in contact with the subjacent 
rock, or separated from it by a layer of shale a couple of feet in 
thickness. It crops out, therefore, along the edges of the field. 
A few feet above, are one or more seams of coal, superimposed 
upon which, are from five hundred to one thousand feet of sand- 
stone. The original floor of the mine appears to have been very 
uneven, and the coal to have been collected into the hollows be- 
