The next stage in the making of coal is one in which the change has proceeded a long way from the starting-point. _Lignite_ is the name which has been applied to a form of impure coal, which sometimes goes under the name of "brown coal." It is not a true coal, and is a very long way from that final stage to which it must attain ere it takes rank with the most valuable of earth's products. From the very commencement, an action has being going on which has caused the amount of the gaseous constituents to become less and less, and which has consequently caused the carbon remaining behind to occupy an increasingly large proportion of the whole mass. So, when we arrive at the lignite stage, we find that a considerable quantity of volatile matter has already been parted with, and that the carbon, which in ordinary living wood is about 50 per cent. of the whole, has already increased to about 67 per cent. In most lignites there is, as a rule, a comparatively large proportion of sulphur, and in such cases it is rendered useless as a domestic fuel. It has been used as a fuel in various processes of manufacture, and the lignite of the well-known Bovey Tracey beds has been utilised in this way at the neighbouring potteries. As compared with true coal, it is distinguished by the abundance of smoke which it produces and the choking sulphurous fumes which also accompany its combustion, but it is largely used in Germany as a useful source of paraffin and illuminating oils. In Silesia, Saxony, and in the district about Bonn, large quantities of lignite are mined, and used as fuel. Large stores of lignite are known to exist in the Weald of the south-east of England, and although the mining operations which were carried on at one time at Heathfield, Bexhill, and other places, were failures so far as the actual discovery of true coal was concerned, yet there can be no doubt as to the future value of the lignite in these parts, when England's supplies of coal approach exhaustion, and attention is turned to other directions for the future source of her gas and paraffin oils. Beside the Bovey Tracey lignitic beds to which we have above referred, other tertiary clays are found to contain this early promise of coal. The _eocene_ beds of Brighton are an important instance of a tertiary lignite, the seam of _surturbrand_, as it is locally called, being a somewhat extensive deposit. We have now closely approached to true coal, and the next step which we shall take will be to consider the varieties in which the black mineral itself is found. The principal of these varieties are as follows, against each being placed the average proportion of pure carbon which it contains:-- Splint or Hard Coal, 83 per cent.; Cannel, Candle or Parrott Coal, 84 per cent.; Cherry or Soft Coal, 85 per cent.; Common Bituminous, or Caking Coal, 88 per cent.; Anthracite, Blind Coal, Culm, Glance, or Stone Coal, from South Wales, 93 per cent.