The coal trade, which at present affords so important a nursery for our seamen, and, in numerous other respects, yields advantages of the most beneficial description to this country, was entirely unknown a few centuries ago. Coals were not generally adopted as fuel until the beginning of the reign of Charles I. They were, however, noticed in documents anterior to the reign of Henry III., for, that monarch, in the year 1234, renewed a charter, granted by his father, to the inhabitants of Newcastle, by which they were permitted to dig coal upon payment of 100_l._ per annum. Coals had been introduced into London before 1306; for in that year, the use of them as fuel was prohibited, from the supposed tendency of their smoke to corrupt the air. About the beginning of the sixteenth century, the best coals were sold in London at the rate of 4_s._ 1_d._ per chaldron, and at Newcastle for no more than 2_s._ 6_d._ During the ensuing century, however, they were received into such general use, that, in 1648, on a scarcity of coal in London, many of the poor are said to have died from want of fuel. The whole quantity of coals imported into London has been estimated, on an average of four years, ending in March, 1815, to amount to 1,170,000 chaldrons per annum. Some writers have imagined coal to be the remains of antediluvian timber, which floated upon the waters of the deluge until several strata of mineral substances had been formed: others conceive it to have been antediluvian peat bog. It is called _pit coal_, from the circumstance only of its being obtained from mines or pits; and, in London, for no better reason than its having been conveyed thither by sea, it has the name of _sea coal_. Its uses as fuel are too extensively known to need here any observations. By the distillation of coal an inflammable gas is produced, which has of late been introduced for the lighting of manufactories, and lighting several of the streets and shops of the metropolis. This gas is conveyed by pipes, from the reservoir in which it is collected, to great distances; and the light which it yields is peculiarly brilliant and beautiful. It was at the foundery belonging to Messrs. Boulton and Watts, at Birmingham, that the first public display of _gas lights_ was made, in the year 1802, on the occasion of the rejoicings for peace. In 1805 the cotton mills of Messrs. Phillips and Lee, at Manchester, were lighted with gas, to the exclusion of lamps, candles, and every other source of artificial light. In the beginning of 1816 it was estimated that, at the three gas─light stations, in Peter─street, Westminster, Worship─street, and Norton Falgate, London, twenty─five chaldrons of coals were used daily; and that these were sufficient to supply with gas 125,000 large lamps. At the works in Dorset─street, Fleet─street, the daily consumption of coal was about three chaldrons, which afforded gas for 1,500 lamps.