159 
Pits of similar coal have also been dug in Cheshire, and in some 
other parts of the kingdom. 
■ Dr. Plott relates* that the Cannel coal from Wednesbury Common 
Pit is of so close a texture, that it will take a passable polish ; as 
may be seen in the choir of the cathedral church of Lichfield, 
which in great part is paved in lozenges, black and white, as other 
churches with marble ; with Cannel coal for the black, and alabaster 
for the white. He also says, that at Beaudesart will work so 
very fine, that the king’s majesty’s head is said to have been cut in 
it, by a carver at Lichfield, resembling him very well.” 
Yours, &c. 
LETTER XVI. 
COAL DESCRIBED DIFFERENT KINDS OF COAL DOUBTFUL IF 
KNOWN TO THE GREEKS, OR EARLY ROMANS BROUGHT INTO 
COMMON USE, IN THIS ISLAND, BUT IN MODERN TIMES 
FOUND IN VARIOUS PARTS OF THE WORLD. 
X WAS much entertained by reading the account of your subterra- 
nean incursion ; and have frequently since smiled at the ludicrous 
appearance which you, and our friend Wilton, must have made, 
dressed in a collier’s garb, and descending, by a bucket, down the 
shaft of a coal pit. The astonishment with which you were stricken 
on your entrance into the pit, is forcibly expressed, by your saying, 
* The Natural History of Staffordshire, by Dr. Plott, p. 125. 
