Changing the person, and adopting the sentiment of Mr. Williams, who, in 1789, published at Edinburgh a Natural History of the Mineral Kingdom, written in a quaint and prolix style,-"I am really concerned for the honour of the coal: it is an interesting subject, especially in Britain ;"—I cannot, however, entirely adopt the next member of the sentence, correct as it may have been half a century ago-" and, as very little to the purpose has been said about it hitherto, that I know of, I reckon the subject my own, and therefore," adds our author, "I wish to be its faithful historian." Entertaining, as I have done, this laudable wish, and having laboured-surely not without some success-to realize it in these pages, I cannot justly complain either of a paucity of materials, or of those not being to the purpose: my only apprehension is, lest I may have been unfortunate enough in some instances to have overlooked, or unsatisfactorily to have exhibited, such as were the most excellent.