THE USE OF COAL.

Hawera Star, Volume XLV, 3 October 1925, Page 7

THE USE OF COAL.

FIRST BURNED TOO YEARS AGO

■V colliery used to be called a coalcry. Sonic friars at Preston first used coals as fuel in 1210. Thirty years later Henry 111. became patron-propnctoi of what was to become one of England s largest coaling centres, Newcastle-on-Tvne. Brown coal lias been found on the Continent, and in England, at Covey, Devonshire. The use of coal was prohibited bj Royal command in E’.Of, and again m 1 Ooalstone is a variety of hard, opaque coal. It is inflammable arid does not soil the hands or make the fingers dirty when handled. It is jet black, and can be cut. . Jn 151)2 the Crown exercised its picrogative, and made coal a Government monopoly. This Act of Parliament has never been repealed. -Vboiit l<><>9 a Mr. Clayton procured <r ils bv distilling coal. It was nearly T:U) years afterwards before it was utilised for purposes of illumination. A resident of Redruth, Cornwall, then, to the alarm and consternation, of as neighbours, used it to . light up Jus house. , Three years before the French weio defeated ’at Trafalgar, Birmingham to celebrate the peace of Amiens, brightened up a large factory with gaslight. Five years elapsed, and then Mr. Winsor. a German, succeeded in lighting up one side of Pall Mall with gas.