COMMON COAL. 155 
a nursery for our seamen, and, in numerous other re- 
spects, yields advantages of the most beneficial descrip- 
tion to this country, was entirely unknown a few cen- 
turies ago. Coals were not generally adopted as fuel 
until the beginning of the reign of Charles I. They 
were, however, noticed in documents anterior to the 
reign of Henry III., for, that monarch, in the year 
123^, renewed a charter, granted by his father, to 
the inhabitants of Newcastle, by which they were per- 
mitted to dig coal upon payment of 100/. per annum. 
Coals had been introduced into London before 1306 ; 
for in that year, the use of them as fuel was prohibited, 
from the supposed tendency of their smoke to corrupt 
the air. About the beginning of the sixteenth century, 
the best coals were sold in London at the rate of 4s. Id. 
per chaldron, and at Newcastle for no more than '2s. 6d. 
During the ensuing century, however, they were re- 
ceived into such general use, that, in 161-8, on a scar- 
city of coal in London, many of the poor are said to 
have died from want of fuel. The whole quantity of 
coals imported into London has been estimated, on an 
average of four years, ending in March, 1815, to amount 
to 1,170,000 chaldrons per annum. 
Some writers have imagined coal to be the remains 
of antediluvian timber, which floated upon the waters of 
the deluge until several strata of mineral substances 
had been formed : others conceive it to have been an- 
tediluvian peat bog. It is called pit coal, from the 
circumstance only of its being obtained from mines or 
pits; and, in London, for no better reason than its having 
been conveyed thither by sea, it has the name of sea 
coal. 
Its uses as fuel are too extensively known to need 
here any observations. By the distillation of coal an 
inflammable gas is produced, which has of late been in- 
troduced for the lighting of manufactories, and lighting 
several of the streets and shops of the metropolis. This 
gas is conveyed by pipes, from the reservoir in which 
it is collected, to great distances ; and the light which 
