The History and Description of Fossil Fuel, the Collieries, and Coal Trade of Great Britain

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Whittaker, 1835 - Coal - 485 pages

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Page 48 - One interesting circumstance attending the history of peatmosses is the high state of preservation of animal substances buried in them for periods of many years. In June, 1747, the body of a woman was found six feet deep, in a peatmoor in the Isle of Axholm, in Lincolnshire. The antique sandals on her feet afforded evidence of her having been buried there for many ages ; yet her nails, hair, and skin, are described as having shown hardly any marks of decay.
Page 321 - Within thirty years last, the nice dames of London would not come into any house, or room, where seacoals were burned, nor willingly eat of the meat that was either sod or roasted with sea-coal fire.
Page 319 - ... there are old men yet dwelling in the village where I remain, which have noted three things to be marvellously altered in England within their sound remembrance. One is, the multitude of chimneys lately erected ; whereas, in their young days, there were not above two or three, if so many, in most uplandish towns of the realm (the religious...
Page 257 - Pit gin, being on a crane not within the influence of the blast, were fortunately preserved. The coal dust, ejected from the William Pit into the drift or horizontal parts of the tube, was about three inches thick, and soon burnt to a light cinder. Pieces of burning coal, driven off the solid stratum of the mine, were also blown up this shaft.* " As soon as the explosion was heard, the wives and children of the workmen ran to the working-pit.
Page 257 - ... of horror, anxiety, and grief. The .machine being rendered useless by the eruption, the rope of the gin was sent down the pit with all expedition. In the absence of horses, a number of men, whom the wish to be instrumental in rescuing their neighbours from their perilous situation, seemed to supply with strength proportionate to the urgency of the occasion, put their shoulders to the starts or shafts of the gin, and wrought it with astonishing expedition.
Page 29 - I believe incontestably established. To Mr. Lyell is eminently due the merit of having awakened us to a sense of our error in this respect. The vast mass of evidence which he has brought together, in illustration of what may be called Diurnal Geology, convinces me that if, five thousand years ago, a Deluge did sweep over the entire globe, its traces can no longer be distinguished from more modern and local disturbances.
Page 354 - The manner of the carriage is by laying rails of timber, from the colliery, down to the river, exactly straight and parallel ; and bulky carts are made with four rowlets fitting these rails ; whereby the carriage is so easy that one horse will draw down four or five chaldron of coals, and is an immense benefit to the coal merchants.
Page 375 - ... and the usual names of the several and respective collieries out of which the said coals are and shall be wrought and gotten, and the price paid by the master or masters for each and every sort of coals that each and every fitter or other person vending or delivering coals as aforesaid...
Page 254 - Materials used for securing Marsh or Sea Walls or Banks, and of Persons maliciously setting on fire any Mine, Pit or Delph of Coal or Cannel Coal, and of Persons unlawfully hunting or taking any Red or Fallow Deer in Forests or Chases, or beating or wounding Keepers or other Officers in Forests, Chases or Parks ; and for more effectually securing the Breed of Wild Fowl...
Page 169 - The intervening portions of more recent ice, by which they are held together, represent the clay and rubbish that fill the faults, and form the partition walls that insulate these adjacent portions of strata which were originally formed, like the sheet of ice, in one continuous plane.

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