For many reasons it would seem that, among modern nations, the primitive Britons were the first to avail themselves of the valuable combustible. The word by which it is designated is not of Saxon, but of British extraction, and is still employed to this day by the Irish, in their form of _o-gual_, and in that of _kolan_ by the Cornish. In Yorkshire stone hammers and hatchets have been found in old mines, showing that the early Britons worked coals before the invasion of the Romans. Manchester,[6] which has risen upon the very ashes of the mineral, and grown to all its wealth and greatness under the influence of its heat and light, next claims the merit of the discovery. Portions of coal have been found under or imbedded in the sand of a Roman way, excavated some years ago for the construction of a house, and which, at the time, were ingeniously conjectured by the local antiquaries to have been collected for the use of the garrison, stationed on the route of these warlike invaders at Mancenion, or the Place of Tents. Certain it is, that fragments of coal are being constantly, in the district, washed out and brought down by the Medlock and other streams, which break from the mountains through the coal strata. The attention of the inhabitants would, in this way, be the more early and readily attracted by the glistening substance. Nevertheless, for long after, coal was but little valued or appreciated, turf and wood being the common articles of consumption throughout the country. About the middle of the ninth century, a grant of land was made by the Abbey of Peterborough, under the restriction of certain payments in kind to the monastery, among which are specified sixty carts of wood, and as showing their comparative worth, only twelve carts of pit-coal. Toward the end of the thirteenth century, Newcastle is said to have traded in the article, and by a charter of Henry III, of date 1284, a license is granted to the burgesses to dig for the mineral. About this period, coals, for the first time, began to be imported into London, but were made use of only by smiths, brewers, dyers, and other artisans, when, in consequence of the smoke being regarded as very injurious to the public health, Parliament petitioned the king, Edward I, to prohibit the burning of coal, on the ground of being an intolerable nuisance. A proclamation was granted, conformable to the prayer of the petition; and the most severe inquisitorial measures were adopted to restrict or altogether abolish the use of the combustible, by fine, imprisonment, and destruction of the furnaces and workshops! They were again brought into common use in the time of Charles I, and have continued to increase steadily with the extension of the arts and manufactures, and the advancing tide of population, until now, in the metropolis and suburbs, coals are annually consumed to the amount of about three millions of tons. The use of coal in Scotland seems to be connected with the rise of