Then the Moor, turning to Flashley, said, ‘You must reflect a little on all these things. Coals are more valuable to the world than the riches of other mines—more important than gold and silver, and diamonds of the first water, because they are the means of advancing and extending the comforts and refinements of life—the industrial arts, the trades, the ornamental arts. Are not these great things? Behold, there are greater yet which are indebted to the coal-fires. For, may I not name Science, Agriculture (in the making of iron, and the steam-ploughs which are forthcoming), Commerce and Navigation. Moreover, do they not tend, by the generation of steam, to annihilate space and time, and are they not rapidly carrying knowledge and civilisation to the remotest corners of the habitable globe? By myriads of jets, in countless forms, they turn the dark night into the brightness of day. Their history commences from the infancy of the earth; they proceed through gradations of wonders; are no less wonderful in the varieties and magnitude of their utility, and do not cease to be of use to man, even when the bright fire is utterly extinguished, and its materials can no more be re-illumined, but are claimed for the garden and the brickfield, not by the dinging and tolling of the bell-man of your grandsires, but by the long-drawn wail of the queer-kneed dusky figure in the flap-hat, who wanders down your streets yowling ‘’Sto—e! o—e!’ ‘And is it then all over? Verily, it doth appear when the coal fire is fairly burnt out to cinders and ashes, that it hath performed its complete circle, and is for ever ended. It is _not_ so. The antediluvian forests absorbed the gases of the atmosphere; much of these have been drawn off; and appropriated, but some portions have remained locked up and hidden in the depths of the earth ever since. Lo! the coal fire is lighted!—flames, for the first time, ascend from it. Then, also for the first time, are liberated gases which are of the date of those primæval forests; they ascend into the atmosphere, and once more form a portion of those elements which are again to assist in the growth of forests. The Coal-Spirit has then performed his grand cycle—and recommences his journey through future cycles of formation.’