PIT-COAL, OR STONE-COAL. See COAL, MINERALOGY Index, and COALERY.
The coal-trade is of infinite importance to Great Britain, which never could have arrived at its present commercial eminence without it; and this eminence it will be impossible to retain if coal should ever become scarce. This we trust is not likely to be the case, though Mr Williams expresses great fears for it, and informs us that at Newcastle and in many parts of Scotland, the mines near the sea are already wasted, the first consequence of which must be an enormous rise in the price. See his observations on this subject in his Natural History of the Mineral Kingdom. This author says, that coal was not discovered till between the middle of the 12th and beginning of the 13th centuries: it is therefore, according to him, 400 years since it was first discovered in Britain, but they have not been in common use for more than 200 years. The same author makes many excellent observations on the appearances and indications of coal, instructions about searching for it, remarks on false and doubtful symptoms of coal; for all which, together with his observations on the different kinds of Scots coal, we shall refer our readers to the work itself; the first part of which, occupying a large proportion of it, is upon the strata of coal, and on the concomitant strata. See GEOLOGY and STRATA of the earth.