CONTENTS OF THE INTRODUCTION. Introductory Sketch.-Proportionate areas of coal land in Europe and America.- Proportionate areas of coal formations in the United States.-General summary of coal statistics.-Europe.-United States of America.-Production of combustibles. -Summary of statistics of mineral fuel.-Increased production of American coal Page Miscellaneous notes in relation to coal.-Geographical distribution of coal.-Com- parative value of gold and silver, and of coal and iron.-Employment of mineral combustibles.-Geological position of coal beds.-Local position and arrangement of beds of coal.-Accidents, faults, and irregularities of coal beds.-Varieties of coal, with reference to their adaptation to the making of iron.-Classification of mineral coals. Adaptation of different varieties of coal to the purposes of steam navigation.-Adaptation of coal to steam power.-Depths of coal mines.-Systems for working coal mines.-Ventilation of coal mines.-Means to destroy or check the fire-damp or grisou in subterranean works.-Local ventilation.-Ventilation of fiery collieries.-Ventilation of collieries in Scotland and the north of England.- Medical treatment after explosion.-Drainage of coal mines.-Tracing of coal beds in the anthracite districts of Pennsylvania.-On the maps or plans of mines.- Fossil botany and geological distribution of vegetable remains. Fossil botany:— Cotyledonea.-I. Dicotyledoneæ.-II. Monocotyledoneæ.-III. Acotyledoneæ, or imperfect.-Microscopic observations on the structure of coal, lignite and peat.- Miscellaneous notes as to coal and fossil vegetation.-Usual position of stigmariæ, PLAN OF THIS WORK. THE growing demand for the species of practical information which it has been our object in the following pages to concentrate, has often suggested itself to the author, and doubtless to numberless others. Perhaps in no country have more frequent inquiries been made in relation to COAL; to its infinite varieties, adaptations and modifications; its innumerable depositories and its geographical distribution, than in the United States of America. This desire, probably, originates in the circumstance that in no country has such rapid progress been made in the development of mineral fuel, not only for all domestic purposes, but as a powerful agent in every department of manufacturing industry; notwithstanding that enormous and almost unbroken forests still overshadow the land. The increasing demand and corresponding supply, the rapid expansion of the field of industrial operations, have no doubt awakened this solicitude for information-local, general, statistical, commercial and scientific, on the subject of coal. We have reason, however, to be assured that the demand for this species of knowledge is not limited to the country from whence we date. It prevails more or less in every quarter of the globe where that inestimable substance has been investigated and brought into the service of man. It was obvious that a statistical work, embodying all the important details in relation to the mineral combustibles of the world, would be an acceptable contribution to practical science. Until some such work appeared, it were a fruitless task to seek for details which no one had undertaken to collect in the compass of a single volume; and which yet remained, like the mineral itself, scattered throughout all the countries of the earth. Acting under this impression the author has sought and gathered together the materials-a great number at least, to remedy the deficiency of which we speak. His design, at the outset, was limited to the collection of such coal statistics as seemed sufficient for his private guidance. As in all labours of this description, the materials, during the progress of the undertaking, accumulated to an extent far greater than was anticipated. An extended arrangement led to greatly increased labour. The sources of information as regards foreign countries, being remote, its acquisition is necessarilly uncertain and tedious: in fact it has no limit, for every day furnishes new facts to be registered. The process never ends, because the elements are inexhaustible. We are reminded, however, by the bulk of the matter on hand that we have reached a point at which we may consign the work to the press. Preparing these pages in the United States, we are not unaware of the disadvantages which result from the want of access to many official European documents, and of reference to minor authorities such as rarely find their way into American libraries. We may, in some degree, counteract these deficiencies by communicating to Europeon inquirers a great amount of information which our position has enabled us to acquire in America. These persons cannot but contemplate with interest the enormous extent of the North American coal-fields, whose very existence, scarce a quarter of a century back, was unknown, even on their actual sites. Of the surprising impulse to the interests of the New World which has been communicated by this recent knowledge, this newly acquired power; of the influence it has manifested in many of the commercial and on all of the industrial departments; of the moral consequences which are perceptible in a thousand forms, we shall hereafter submit abundant proofs. It will be much more difficult to speculate as to the position to which these combined elements of prosperity may conduct us in the next quarter or half century. We draw the most sanguine inferences with relation to the future, because the experience of the past twenty-five years fully justifies such flattering anticipations. In that comparatively small period, the consumption of mineral fuel in America has wonderfully augmented: and yet, in the corresponding time in Europe, we are not less astonished to observe the parallel advance in the production of coal, and in the extension of manufactures throughout all the principal countries. In fact, the whole civilized world seems to have made a simultaneous advance in productive industry. It will be our task to point out the exact relative proportions of the progress thus made by each country, during a long series of years and in several successive periods or intervals. Something further yet remains to be said in relation to the objects contemplated in this volume, and of the several matters to which we have given a place therein. Our range would have been but narrow had we limited the investigation to mineral coal alone. It is well known that vast deposits of combustible substances have been denominated and described as coal, which the lights of science now shew belong to a more recent class, and to a variety of geological ages or epochs. We refer to the brown coal or lignite class, so abundantly distributed. In a large portion of Europe, such as the Austrian, Belgian, French and Prussian dominions, the distinction is perfectly well understood, and all official mining statistics are, in these countries, uniformly arranged under their |