EARLY HISTORY--ITS USE AND ITS ABUSE.
The extensive use of coal throughout the civilised world for purposes of
heating and illumination, and for the carrying on of manufactures and
industries, may be regarded as a well-marked characteristic of the age in
which we live.
Coal must have been in centuries past a familiar object to many
generations. People must have long been living in close proximity to its
outcrops at the sides of the mountains and at the surface of the land,
yet without being acquainted with its practical value, and it seems
strange that so little use was made of it until about three centuries
ago, and that its use did not spread earlier and more quickly throughout
civilised countries.
A mineral fuel is mentioned by Theophrastus about 300 B.C., from which it
is inferred that thus early it was dug from some of the more shallow
depths. The Britons before the time of the Roman invasion are credited
with some slight knowledge of its industrial value. Prehistoric
excavations have been found in Monmouthshire, and at Stanley, in
Derbyshire, and the flint axes there actually found imbedded in the layer
of coal are reasonably held to indicate its excavation by neolithic or
palaeolithic (stone-age) workmen.
The fact that coal cinders have been found on old Roman walls in
conjunction with Roman tools and implements, goes to prove that its use,
at least for heating purposes, was known in England prior to the Saxon
invasion, whilst some polygonal chambers in the six-foot seam near the
river Douglas, in Lancashire, are supposed also to be Roman.
The Chinese were early acquainted with the existence of coal, and knew of
its industrial value to the extent of using it for the baking of
porcelain.
The fact of its extensive existence in Great Britain, and the valuable
uses to which it might be put, did not, however, meet with much notice
until the ninth century, when, owing to the decrease of the
forest-area, and consequently of the supply of wood-charcoal therefrom,
it began to attract attention as affording an excellent substitute for
charcoal.
The coal-miner was, however, still a creation of the future, and even as
peat is collected in Ireland at the present day for fuel, without the
laborious process of mining for it, so those people living in
coal-bearing districts found their needs satisfied by the quantity of
coal, small as it was, which appeared ready to hand on the sides of the
carboniferous mountains. Till then, and for a long time afterwards, the
principal source of fuel consisted of vast forests, amidst which the
charcoal-burners, or "colliers" as they were even then called, lived out
their lonely existence in preparing charcoal and hewing wood, for the
fires of the baronial halls and stately castles then swarming throughout
the land. As the forests became used up, recourse was had more and more
to coal, and in 1239 the first charter dealing with and recognising the
importance of the supplies was granted to the freemen of Newcastle,
according them permission to dig for coals in the Castle fields. About
the same time a coal-pit at Preston, Haddingtonshire, was granted to the
monks of Newbattle.
Specimens of Newcastle coal were sent to London, but the city was loth to
adopt its use, objecting to the innovation as one prejudicial to the
health of its citizens. By the end of the 16th century, two ships only
were found sufficient to satisfy the demand for stone-coal in London.
This slow progress may, perhaps, have been partially owing to the
difficulties which were placed in the way of its universal use. Great
opposition was experienced by those who imported it into the metropolis,
and the increasing amount which was used by brewers and others about the
year 1300, caused serious complaints to be made, the effect of which was
to induce Parliament to obtain a proclamation from the King prohibiting
its use, and empowering the justices to inflict a fine on those who
persisted in burning it. The nuisance which coal has since proved itself,
in the pollution of the atmosphere and in the denuding of wide tracts of
country of all vegetation, was even thus early recognised, and had the
efforts which were then made to stamp out its use, proved successful,
those who live now in the great cities might never have become acquainted
with that species of black winter fog which at times hangs like a pall
over them, and transforms the brightness of day into a darkness little
removed from that of night. At the same time, we must bear in mind that
it is universally acknowledged that England owes her prosperity, and her
pre-eminence in commerce, in great part, to her happy possession of wide
and valuable coal-fields, and many authorities have not hesitated to say,
that, in their opinion, the length of time during which England will
continue to hold her prominent position as an industrial nation is
limited by the time during which her coal will last.
The attempt to prohibit the burning of coal was not, however, very
successful, for in the reign of Edward III. a license was again granted
to the freemen of Newcastle to dig for coals. Newcastle was thus the
first town to become famous as the home of the coal-miner, and the fame
which it early acquired, it has held unceasingly ever since.
Other attempts at prohibition of the article were made at various times
subsequently, amongst them being one which was made in Elizabeth's reign.
It was supposed that the health of the country squires, who came to town
to attend the session of Parliament, suffered considerably during their
sojourn in London, and, to remedy this serious state of affairs, the use
of stone-coal during the time Parliament was sitting was once more
prohibited.
Coal was, however, by this time beginning to be recognised as a most
valuable and useful article of fuel, and had taken a position in the
industrial life of the country from which it was difficult to remove it.
Rather than attempt to have arrested the growing use of coal, Parliament
would have been better employed had it framed laws compelling the
manufacturers and other large burners to consume their own smoke, and
instead of aiming at total prohibition, have encouraged an intelligent
and more economical use of it.
In spite of all prohibition its use rapidly spread, and it was soon
applied to the smelting of iron and to other purposes. Iron had been
largely produced in the south of England from strata of the Wealden
formation, during the existence of the great forest which at one time
extended for miles throughout Surrey and Sussex. The discovery of coal,
however, and the opening up of many mines in the north, gave an important
impetus to the smelting of iron in those counties, and as the forests of
the Weald became exhausted, the iron trade gradually declined. Furnace
after furnace became extinguished, until in 1809 that at Ashburnham,
which had lingered on for some years, was compelled to bow to the
inevitable fate which had overtaken the rest of the iron blast-furnaces.
In referring to this subject, Sir James Picton says:--"Ironstone of
excellent quality is found in various parts of the county, and was very
early made use of. Even before the advent of the Romans, the Forest of
Dean in the west, and the Forest of Anderida, in Sussex, in the east,
were the two principal sources from which the metal was derived, and all
through the mediaeval ages the manufacture was continued. After the
discovery of the art of smelting and casting iron in the sixteenth
century, the manufacture in Sussex received a great impulse from the
abundance of wood for fuel, and from that time down to the middle of the
last century it continued to flourish. One of the largest furnaces was at
Lamberhurst, on the borders of Kent, where the noble balustrade
surrounding St Paul's Cathedral was cast at a cost of about £11,000. It
is stated by the historian Holinshed that the first cast-iron ordnance
was manufactured at Buxted. Two specialities in the iron trade belonged
to Sussex, the manufacture of chimney-backs, and cast-iron plates for
grave-stones. At the time when wood constituted the fuel the backs of
fire-places were frequently ornamented with neat designs. Specimens, both
of the chimney-backs and of the monuments, are occasionally met with.
These articles were exported from Rye. The iron manufacture, of course,
met with considerable discouragement on the discovery of smelting with
pit-coal, and the rapid progress of iron works in Staffordshire and the
North, but it lingered on until the great forest was cut down and the
fuel exhausted."
In his interesting work, "Sylvia," published in 1661, Evelyn, in speaking
of the noxious vapours poured out into the air by the increasing number
of coal fires, writes, "This is that pernicious smoke which sullies all
her glory, superinducing a sooty crust or furr upon all that it lights,
spoiling movables, tarnishing the plate, gildings and furniture, and
corroding the very iron bars and hardest stones with those piercing and
acrimonious spirits which accompany its sulphur, and executing more in
one year than the pure air of the country could effect in some hundreds."
The evils here mentioned are those which have grown and have become
intensified a hundred-fold during the two centuries and a half which have
since elapsed. When the many efforts which were made to limit its use in
the years prior to 1600 are remembered; at which time, we are informed,
two ships only were engaged in bringing coal to London, it at once
appears how paltry are the efforts made now to moderate these same
baneful influences on our atmosphere, at a time when the annual
consumption of coal in the United Kingdom has reached the enormous total
of 190 millions of tons. The various smoke-abatement associations which
have started into existence during the last few years are doing a little,
although very little, towards directing popular attention to the subject;
but there is an enormous task before them, that of awakening every
individual to an appreciation of the personal interest which he has in
their success, and to realise how much might at once be done if each were
to do his share, minute though it might be, towards mitigating the evils
of the present mode of coal-consumption. Probably very few householders
ever realise what important factories their chimneys constitute, in
bringing about air pollution, and the more they do away with the use of
bituminous coal for fuel, the nearer we shall be to the time when yellow
fog will be a thing of the past.
A large proportion of smoke consists of particles of pure unconsumed
carbon, and this is accompanied in its passage up our chimneys by
sulphurous acid, begotten by the sulphur which is contained in the coal
to the amount of about eight pounds in every thousand; by sulphuretted
hydrogen, by hydro-carbons, and by vapours of various kinds of oils,
small quantities of ammonia, and other bodies not by any means
contributing to a healthy condition of the atmosphere. A good deal of the
heavier carbon is deposited along the walls of chimneys in the form of
soot, together with a small percentage of sulphate of ammonia; this is as
a consequence very generally used for manure. The remainder is poured out
into the atmosphere, there to undergo fresh changes, and to become a
fruitful cause of those thick black fogs with which town-dwellers are so
familiar. Sulphuretted hydrogen (H_{2}S) is a gas well known to students
of chemistry as a most powerful reagent, its most characteristic external
property being the extremely offensive odour which it possesses, and
which bears a strong resemblance to that of rotten eggs or decomposing
fish. It tarnishes silver work and picture frames very rapidly. On
combustion it changes to sulphurous acid (SO_{2}), and this in turn has
the power of taking up from the air another atom of oxygen, forming
sulphuric acid (SO_{3} + water), or, as we more familiarly know it, oil
of vitriol.
Yet the smoke itself, including as it does all the many impurities which
exist in coal, is not only evil in itself, but is evil in its influences.
Dr Siemens has said:--"It has been shown that the fine dust resulting
from the imperfect combustion of coal was mainly instrumental in the
formation of fog; each particle of solid matter attracting to itself
aqueous vapour. These globules of fog were rendered particularly
tenacious and disagreeable by the presence of tar vapour, another result
of imperfect combustion of raw fuel, which might be turned to better
account at the dyeworks. The hurtful influence of smoke upon public
health, the great personal discomfort to which it gave rise, and the vast
expense it indirectly caused through the destruction of our monuments,
pictures, furniture, and apparel, were now being recognised."
The most effectual remedy would result from a general recognition of the
fact that wherever smoke was produced, fuel was being consumed
wastefully, and that all our calorific effects, from the largest furnace
to the domestic fire, could be realised as completely, and more
economically, without allowing any of the fuel employed to reach the
atmosphere unburnt. This most desirable result might be effected by the
use of gas for all heating purposes, with or without the additional use
of coke or anthracite. The success of the so-called smoke-consuming
stoves is greatly open to question, whilst some of them have been
reported upon by those appointed to inspect them as actually accentuating
the incomplete combustion, the abolition of which they were invented to
bring about.
The smoke nuisance is one which cuts at the very basis of our business
life. The cloud which, under certain atmospheric conditions, rests like a
pall over our great cities, will not even permit at times of a single ray
of sunshine permeating it. No one knows whence it rises, nor at what hour
to expect it. It is like a giant spectre which, having lain dormant since
the carboniferous age, has been raised into life and being at the call of
restless humanity; it is now punishing us for our prodigal use of the
wealth it left us, by clasping us in its deadly arms, cutting off our
brilliant sunshine, and necessitating the use in the daytime of
artificial light; inducing all kinds of bronchial and throat affections,
corroding telegraph and telephone wires, and weathering away the masonry
of public buildings.
The immense value to us of the coal-deposits which lie buried in such
profusion in the earth beneath us, can only be appreciated when we
consider the many uses to which coal has been put. We must remember, as
we watch the ever-extending railway ramifying the country in every
direction, that the first railway and the first locomotive ever built,
were those which were brought into being in 1814 by George Stephenson,
for the purpose of the carriage of coals from the Killingworth Colliery.
To the importance of coal in our manufactures, therefore, we owe the
subsequent development of steam locomotive power as the means of the
introduction of passenger traffic, and by the use of coal we are enabled
to travel from one end of the country to the other in a space of time
inconceivably small as compared with that occupied on the same journey in
the old coaching days. The increased rapidity with which our vessels
cross the wide ocean we owe to the use of coal; our mines are carried to
greater depths owing to the power our pumping-engines obtain from coal in
clearing the mines of water and in ensuring ventilation; the enormous
development of the iron trade only became possible with the increased
blast power obtained from the consumption of coal, and the very hulls and
engines of our steamships are made of this iron; our railroads and
engines are mostly of iron, and when we think of the extensive use of
iron utensils in every walk in life, we see how important becomes the
power we possess of obtaining the necessary fuel to feed the smelting
furnaces. Evaporation by the sun was at one time the sole means of
obtaining salt from seawater; now coal is used to boil the salt pans and
to purify the brine from the salt-mines in the triassic strata of
Cheshire. The extent to which gas is used for illuminating purposes
reminds us of another important product obtained from coal. Paraffin oil
and petroleum we obtain from coal, whilst candles, oils, dyes,
lubricants, and many other useful articles go to attest the importance of
the underground stores of that mineral which has well and deservedly been
termed the "black diamond."