KINGDOM. Next to the coal-fields of the United States, those of the United Kingdom are of the greatest economic importance. With in the limits of England, Scotland, and Wales there are more than twenty areas underlain by seams of anthracite, bituminous, and cannel coal. The largest of these areas is that of South Wales, in Monmouthshire and Pembrokeshire, which has a length of about 50 miles and a width of nearly 20 miles. The coal-measures form an elliptical basin, and are several thousand feet in thickness. Coal is found in three horizons, of which the upper has no less than S2 seams, measuring ISO feet in all. The lowest horizon yields valuable steam and blast-furnace coal. In the north of England the coal-fields of Lancashire. Derby shire, and Yorkshire are the largest. The Lan cashire field is of irregular quadrilateral form, with a width of about 18 miles from north to south, and a length from east to west of more than 50 miles. It includes about I00 feet of ccal in workable seams, which dip at a high angle and are much broken by faulting. The Yorkshire and Derbyshire measures occupy a single area that extends for a distance of about 60 miles from Bradford on the north to near Derby on the south. and has a breadth of from
3 to 32 miles. They yield bituminous coal, ex cellent for steaming and iron-making purposes.
North of the Yorkshire field is the large basin of Northumberland and Durham, from which steam ing, coking, and house coals arc produced. In Scotland the coal-measures are extensively de veloped in Ayrshire, Lanarkshire, Stirlingshire. and Fifeshire. The productive coal-fields of the United Kingdom belong to the Carboniferous period; brown coal of Jurassic or Tertiary age is known to occur, but the seams arc too small to be profitably exploited. The exports of coal from this country are of great importance, amounting in I 900 to 51,038,000 short tons, valued at $193,032,000. Much of the coal gees to Italy, Russia, Holland, and to the European countries that possess small resources of the mineral, while the remainder is exported to the more remote parts of the world.
Further details regarding the distribution of coal will be found under the titles of countrie.s.