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use, in this part of the British empire, until the reign of Charles the 
First ; and even in Scotland, almost proverbially poor in vegetable, 
and rich in fossil fuel, it was at a very late period that coal was 
commonly used ; for about the middle of the fifteenth century, when 
iEneas Sylvius visited this island, he saw in Scotland poor people, in 
rags, begging at the churches, and receiving for alms pieces of stone, 
with which they went away contented. This species of stone, he says, 
whether impregnated with sulphur, or whatever other inflammable 
substance it may be, they burn in place of wood, of which their 
country is destitute*. 
Mr. Arnot saysf , “ Coal certainly was not discovered in the 
middle of the twelfth century, and it was as certainly known in the 
beginning of the thirteenth century. In the Leges BurgorumJ , which 
were enacted about A. D. 1146, a particular privilege is granted to 
those who bring fuel into boroughs. Wood, turf, and peat, are 
particularly mentioned, but with respect to coal there is a dead 
silence. But in the year 1234, Henry III. of England renewed a 
charter which his father had given to the inhabitants of Newcastle ; 
and in this renovated charter he grants, upon their supplication, to 
the persons in whose favour the charter was conceived, licence to 
dig coal upon payment of £.100 a year, which is the earliest 
mention of coal in the island ” And Boetius |( , in his Description 
of Scotland, his native country, written in the beginning of the six- 
teenth century, says, ‘‘There are black stones also digged out 
of the ground, which are very good for firing ; and such is their 
intolerable heat, that they resolve and melt iron, and therefore 
are very profitable for smiths and such artificers as deal with other 
metals.” 
In most countries of Europe has this valuable substance been 
* jEneas Sylvii Opera, p. 443. 
t Leg. Burg. c. 38. 
f History of Edinburgh. 
II Boetii Scotorum Regni Descriptio, p. 10. 
