trade was fixed near the end of the fourteenth century. At this period it carried twenty chaldrons of coal, on each of which a duty of 2d. was paid to the Crown by merchants and strangers not possessed of the freedom of Newcastle. But while the size of the keel has remained the same down to the present day (about twenty-one tons), the size of the Newcastle chaldron (on which the duty was paid), was gradually much increased until fixed by law long afterwards when it had attained to upwards of twice its original proportions.

Not only on the banks of the Tyne but at many different points in the Great Northern coalfield the working of coal was being carried on in the latter halt of the fourteenth century. Already at this time collieries had been opened out at Lumley, Cocken, and Rainton, on the River Wear; and further south at Hett, Coxhoe, Coundon, Evenwood, Softley, and Cockfield Fell. We also hear of coal mines at Plessey, near Blyth, in Northumberland: and have evidence of small collieries being worked in other parts of the same county.

In the system of mining no less than in the coal trade matters were already assuming a settled form at this epoch. The holes and quarries from which the supplies of coal were at first obtained had in the middle of the fourteenth century been superseded by regular mine works, consisting of pit and adit, or vertical shaft and horizontal gallery. This arrangement was simple

and effective, and remained the typical form so long as coal workings were only carried on above the level of free drainage. The shaft was employed for raising the coal by means of a windlass, or jack roll, worked by manual labour; the adit,1 or water-gate, served to drain off the water from the workings; while the two combined produced a natural ventilation sufficient for the shallow and limited workings of these early times.

Even at this period coal leases were beginning to be drawn out with considerable care and detail. In the earliest leases of which we find mention (such as those granted by the monks of Tynemouth about 1330 a.D.), a certain rent per annum was alone reserved by the lessors, without any stipulation as to the quantity of coal allowed to be worked for the same. But the necessity of making the quantity of coal drawn from the mine bear a fixed relation to the amount of rent paid soon became felt, and as early as the middle of the fourteenth century provisions were introduced for this purpose. At first this was effected by simply limiting the quantity of coal which might be worked. Thus in a lease of five mines at Whickham, made by the Bishop of Durham in 1356, it was stipulated that the lessees might not draw from each mine more than one keel

1 This word occurs in a variety of forms which seem to point to its being a contraction for aqueduct

(twenty-one tons) per day. The arrangement of limiting the quantity of coal to be worked was the plan usually adopted in leases, until the introduction of the more improved modern method of having both a fixed and a sliding, or tonnage rent, which makes the amount of rent to be in exact proportion to the quantity of coal worked.

CHAPTER III.

THE INCREASING SCARCITY OF WOOD CAUSES COAL TO

COME INTO GENERAL USE FOR DOMESTIC PURPOSES. -FIRST DIFFICULTIES IN THE MINES.

"Thou didst swear to me sitting by a sea-coal fire.”

-SHAKSPEARE.

A SCARCITY of materials appears to exist relative to the coal trade during the fifteenth century, but not so with reference to the mines, and we have evidence of a steady increase in the demand for coal from the gradual extension of mining operations which was going on, many new coal tracts being brought under contribution. The extension, however, was on the same lines as before; the supplies of coal were still obtained from shallow workings; while the produce of the mines was chiefly consumed by the inhabitants of the coal districts, or of the maritime towns, or exported to the Continent.

By those altogether unaccustomed to it, the use of stones for fuel was regarded with curiosity. Æneas

Sylvius (afterwards Pope Pius II.), who visited Scotland in the capacity of papal legate in the middle of the fifteenth century, mentions in his Commentaries that he saw the poor people who begged at the churches going away quite pleased with stones given them for alms. "This kind of stone," he adds, "being impregnated with sulphur or some fatty matter, is burnt instead of wood, of which the country is destitute."

Even about a century later it seemed to surprise Leland to find the population of the English coal districts using coals in their fires in places where supplies of wood could still be had. He explains the circumstance by stating that coal was found plentifully there, and "sold good chepe.”

During the sixteenth century the coal trade entered upon a period of greatly increased activity. A considerable demand for coal had sprung up on the Continent, and large quantities were exported thither from the Tyne and the Frith of Forth. In the year 1546 we find an order sent to Newcastle by King Henry VIII. for 3,000 chaldrons of coal to be forwarded to Boulogne, in France, with all possible despatch. Artificers in France were already relying to a large extent on supplies of coal from Newcastle. A letter written in 1552 speaks of Newcastle coal as "that thinge that France can lyve no more withowte than the fyshe without water," for without this, says the writer, "they can nother make stele worke, nor metall worke,