Historically considered, coal mining perhaps dates back to about the end of the 12th century. Coal, as an inflammable substance, appears to have been known to the ancients, and to the Britons before the Romans visited their island, it being found frequently in ravines and beds of rivers of a color and texture so decidedly different from the strata which in general ac company it; but as at that period, and for cen turies afterward, the country was covered with immense forests, which supplied abundance of fuel for every purpose of life, there was no necessity for using coal as fuel. The working of coal, therefore, only 'became an object of attention as population and civilization ad vanced, when agriculture began to be studied, the woods cleared away and the arts of civil life cultivated; accordingly we find that the working of coal in Great Britain, as an article of commerce, is comparatively of modern date. The first charter giving liberty to the town of Newcastle-upon-Tyne to dig coal was granted by Henry III in 1239; it was than denominated ((sea-coal,'" on account of its being shipped for places at a distance. In the year 1281 the New castle coal-trade had become so extensive and important that laws were enacted for its regu lation. In Scotland coal began to be worked much about the same time; and a charter was granted in the year 1291 in favor of the abbot and convent of Dunfermline, in the county of Fife, giving the right of digging coal in the lands of Pittencneff, adjoining the convent.
Coal began to be used for iron-smelting about the beginning of the 17th century. The work ing of coal gradually increased, though on a very limited scale, until the beginning of the 18th century, when the steam-engine was brought forward by Newcomen in the year 1705, and was applied to collieries in the vicin ity of Newcastle about the year 1715. This machine produced a new era in the con cerns of Great Britain, and, as it were in an instant, put every coal-field within the grasp of its owner. Collieries were opened in every quarter; and the coal-trade rapidly increased to an astonishing extent. This extension of the trade was greatly aided by James Watt, who so very much improved the construction and power of the steam-engine as to render it one of the most complete and most useful pieces of mechanism. See Com. MINING MACHINERY.
Bibliography.— Dague, J. H., and Phillips, S. J.,