tulary of Newbottle there is a grant in 1189 to the monks by De Quincey, Constable of Scotland, of the coal between Whiteside and Pinkie,* near Musselburgh, which is also confirmed by King William."

In A.D. 1239, King Henry III. (of England) granted a charter to the inhabitants of Newcastle to dig for coals, which is the first legal mention of the fuel in England. There is the following very interesting notice also of the use of mineral coal by the Romans in Britain :

:

"In nearly all the stations of the line" (viz. of the Roman wall in the north), "the ashes of mineral fuel have been found: in some a store of unconsumed coal has been met with, which, though intended to give warmth to the primeval occupants of the isthmus, has been burnt in the grates of the modern English. In several places, the source whence the mineral was procured can be pointed out; but the most extensive workings that I have heard of are in the neighbourhood of Grindon Lough, near Sewing Shields. Not long ago a shaft was sunk, with the view of procuring the coal, which was supposed to be below the surface; the projector soon found that, though the coal had been there, it was all removed. The ancient workings stretched beneath the bed of the lake."

"So also," I am permitted to add, on the same authority, "in the West Riding of Yorkshire, near North Brierley, many beds of cinders have occurred, heaped up in the fields, and a number of Roman coins was found in one of them. Cindery dross, the refuse of some coal-fire mixed with some metallic matter, has also been found at Manchester, and some of the rubbish appears to have aided in forming a Roman road there. Coal and slack have also been discovered in the sand under the Roman way from Manchester to Ribchester. It has been inferred from the latter evidence, and from the circumstance that the word Coal is British,§ Glo || (now Gual, Irish, and Kolan, Cornish), as well as

* Wyterrigh and Ponttekyn, in the original.

+ Bernard's Hist. and Art of Warming and Ventilation.

The Roman Wall, a Historical, Topographical, and Descriptive Account of the Barrier of the Lower Isthmus extending from the Tyne to the Solway, deduced from numerous Personal Surveys. By the Rev. John Collingwood Bruce, M.A. 8vo. 1851.

§ Whitaker's Manchester; 8vo, ii. 37.

Pennant's Tour in Wales, 17.

the patent nature of the coal seams, that the mineral in question was used by the Britons.* But the alleged proofs are scarcely unimpeachable. It does not follow that the Romans did not deposit the coal found under their road. It is not shown that the British word is exclusively such. On the contrary, Kol and kindred words are synonymous in all the northern dialects. And that the mere knowledge of the existence and use of coal does. not necessarily lead to its employment, is evident from the long preference for wood fires exhibited in England at a later period. At the same time, it is possible enough that the Romans derived their use of coal from the natives, though not proven.'

During the Saxon period, a grant was made in 852 by the Abbey of Peterborough, under the reservation of certain boons and payments in kind to the monastery, amongst which were 60 fother of wood, 12 of græfan, and 6 of gearda (earth or turf). Græfan is explained by Gibson in his Sax. Chron. to mean coal, carbo fossilis. Bosworth gives the same meaning. Groove is an old word for a mine, out of which minerals are graven or hewn. The miners in the Alston Moor lead district are to this day called groovers." "

In the reign of Edward I., and again of Elizabeth, edicts were issued prohibiting coal fires in London; yet it appears, from a charter of Edward II. dated in 1315, that the coal of Derbyshire was in use in the monasteries. And it came to be extensively used in the north of England before the commencement of the seventeenth century, as, I am well informed, frequent instances of coal-workings are noticed in the local histories of Northumbria.

Hector Boethius, in his Histor. (Paris, 1527, fol. x.,) has the following passage: "In hac (Fifa) præter omne frumenti genus quod tota usque insula reperitur, pecorumque atque armentorum numerosam multitudinem, effoditur ingenti numero lapis niger faciendo igni supra modum accommodus quales Leodii quoque effodiuntur, tanti caloris cum accensi sunt ut ferrum etiam liquefaciunt fabrisque ferro ærique molliendo in primis usui sint; nec aliubi nisi inter Taum et Tinam amnes (quod sciam) quidem in tota Albione illius lapidis genus invenitur."

An Italian work, entitled Descrittione del Regno di Scotia

di Petruccio Ubaldini, was published at Antwerp 1588, and has been reprinted by the Bannatyne Club. The author says in his proemio, that he was in Scotland in the service of the late king, Edward VI. The work is for the most part a mere paraphrase of Hector Boece, but the following passage, besides giving a rendering of the preceding extract, seems drawn from his own knowledge, and has been obligingly translated for me by Mr C. Innes :

"In this region (Fife), besides every kind of corn and grain, and great quantity of sheep, cattle, and other animals, there is dug a great deal of black stone which serves for coal (carbone), and it appears that, on account of the odour that exhales from it, people live shorter and less healthy. The country around Liege is also abounding in that earth. The fire of that stone (piætra) is of such heat that iron is with great ease melted by it, and on that account smiths use it both for facilitating their art and to save expense, it not being used in Scotland, still less in all those places which are distant from woods (non essendo usata in Scotia meno ancora in tulti quei luoghi che sono lontani dalle selve). And in England, about London, they use that of Newcastle in good quantity, not only for breweries of beer and ale, and for smiths, but also for dwelling-houses, being cheaper than ordinary coal and than wood. (According to the opinions of physicians, the fire of this coal must be pernicious. when used in the kitchen.-Marginal note.) In some part of France also, a good deal is carried from Scotland. But they are sparing in great houses, and even in the middling, of the use of that which is called sea-coal, from its being shipped to so many places. This requires always to be kept under the chimney, gathered and bound together, making a kind of cake, the pieces being, as it were, joined by their great fatness and unctuousness extracted by the heat of the fire, so that its sulphureous smoke is very thick and ill-smelling, and very offensive to many. From which we may believe it comes that, at Newcastle and in that neighbourhood, the oldest people hardly ever live beyond fifty or sixty. And because by roasting (abbruciare) it is cleared of that unpleasant sulphureous smell, the richer Scots are accustomed to use it for their chambers, after it has been roasted sometimes once, sometimes twice, and then it has very little of

that ill smell. But it requires to be always kept together, or it goes out quickly. Its ashes are of no use, and it leaves very few. In some veins they find a sort which is not so ill-smelling, and among these some veins are found more condensed (concotte) and free from sulphur, out of which they take good pieces of stone, which, though fragile, can be cut and sawed into little pieces or pencils (stili) for drawing for painters and for writers, their marks being easily erased with a crumb of bread. And this is of colour not so black as the coal, though shining (lucente) like it, but it oftener inclines to the ashy colour like a dull leaden colour. Now, this stone or coal is found between the rivers Tay and Tyne in Scotland, and in no other part of that kingdom. And now enough of it."

Arnot, in his History of Edinburgh, p. 85, records two instances illustrative of coal being a rare though useful commodity, so late as the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. "Æneas Sylvius," says he, "who afterwards assumed the purple under the name of Pius the Second, visited this island about the middle of the fifteenth century. He relates that he saw in Scotland. the poor people, who in rags begged at the churches, receive for alms pieces of stone, with which they went away contented. This species of stone, whether with sulphur, or whatever inflammable substance it may be impregnated, they burn in place of wood, of which their country is destitute." And Pinkerton adds to a somewhat similar statement on the authority of the same Pope, in the reign of James I., that "Scotland was a cold country, fertile of few sorts of grain, and generally void of trees, but there is a sulphureous stone dug up which is used for firing."

*

A few years since there was printed a series of very valuable reports on the mining districts of England and Scotland, as well as France, Belgium, and Germany, by the parliamentary commissioner Mr Seymour Tremenheere, dating from 1844 to 1849, one or two extracts from which, relative to this neighbourhood, may be appropriate and interesting. He gives the following comparative table of the number of working coal and iron-stone pits in Scotland, from which it appears that Fifeshire stands the fourth highest. He states that his information was History of Scotland, 4to, 1797, vol. i. P. 149.

*

gathered from Mr John Geddes of Edinburgh (a native of Dunfermline), and Mr Neil Robson of Glasgow, the chief "consulting engineers" in Scotland on this subject, and some of the leading managers of mines, whose account is that there are in Scotland about 400 working coal and iron-stone pits, viz. :—

"The depth may be taken from 10 fathoms to 178 fathoms, and the fiery districts may be said to be Lanarkshire, Renfrewshire, and Stirlingshire.'

As to Fifeshire he says, "The Procurator-fiscal of Dunfermline had no reason to believe that females were still employed in the mines in any of the eight parishes forming the western district of Fifeshire, in which there were seventeen or eighteen collieries.

"Everything that long-continued care could devise for the improvement of the collier population has been in progress at the works of the Earl of Elgin, in the parish of Dunfermline (Mr Grier, manager), for many years past, and with very encouraging success. The details of management, &c., which are fully given by Mr Franks in his 'Report to the Children's Employment Commissioners' (evidence of Mr Grier, p. 496), need not be here repeated. No females have been employed since that act passed, and the temporary suffering caused by the change has nearly disappeared. It yet remains to raise the intelligence of these, and the colliers of the other works in the west of Fife, to the point when they will be able to perceive the suicidal consequences of throwing away so large a portion of the best years of their lives, and, while injuring their employers, also inflicting a far greater and more permanent injury on themselves and their families, by their irrational adherence to the 'Regulation' restricting each other's labour.

Pp. 16, 17, of Report for 1849.