Dagney, an Italian, and an ingenious glass-maker, of Bristol, made many pots of glass-house clay for them; but they all broke and failed. The partners importuned Dudley to visit their works, and he pronounced it impossible to make iron with coal in pots to profit; but so confident were they of success that they persevered in their own plan and invited Dudley to come back again "to see it effected." The second attempt, however, failed like the first. Afterwards Buck and his partners removed from the Forest of Dean to Bristol, where they erected new works; but here having no better success than before they finally desisted in 1656.

In the following year the matter was taken up by Captain John Copley, who obtained a patent from Cromwell. Copley built a blast-furnace at the coalworks near Bristol, and employed engineers to make his bellows to blow; but after an expenditure of several hundred pounds it was found that the bellows would not work. Dudley (who appears to have resided at Bristol at this time) went to see the works, and told Copley, who was an old acquaintance, that even if his bellows could blow he feared he could not smelt iron with coal. Dudley, moreover, without the help of any engine, made the bellows to be blown "feisibly" by manual labour; but his prophecy appears to have proved correct, as Copley soon abandoned the scheme and removed from the neighbourhood.

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Immediately upon the arrival of Charles II. in England we find Dudley petitioning to be restored to his estate (which he had forfeited as a royalist), and to his patent for making iron with coal. But he was only one among a crowd of supplicants for Royal favour. He failed to procure a patent; and Colonel Proger, who applied for a patent for the same purpose in the following year, seems to have fared no better.

Notwithstanding the many failures which had attended the attempts to substitute coal for wood in the smelting of minerals up to this time, individuals were not wanting who still continued to hope and expect that this desideratum would eventually be accomplished. "It is to be hoped," wrote Dr. Fuller, in 1662, “that a way may be found out to charke sea coal in such manner as to render it useful for the making of iron. All things are not found out in one age, as reserved for future discovery: and that perchance may be easy for the next, which seems impossible to this generation."

Even as late as 1686 the problem still remained unsolved. Dr. Plot, writing at this time, gives an account of an attempt made in Staffordshire a few years before by Dr. Frederick de Blewstone, a German, to smelt iron with raw coal. He built his furnace at Wednesbury, 'so ingeniously contrived (that only the flame of the coal should come to the ore, with several other conveniences) that many were of opinion he would succeed

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in it. But experience, that great baffler of speculation, showed it would not be; the sulphureous vitriolic steams that issue from the pyrites which frequently, if not always, accompanies pit coal ascending with the flame and poisoning the ore."

But success was now near at hand. In 1692 a company was incorporated for smelting lead with coal. Leigh tells us in his Natural History of Lancashire that shortly before 1700 iron was being made "by means of cakes of pit coal" (i.e. coke). And at nearly the same time coal was successfully applied to the smelting of both tin and copper. So that as the general introduction of coal for domestic purposes was the distinguishing feature of the coal trade at the close of the sixteenth century, its successful application to the smelting of metalliferous ores may be regarded as marking another epoch in the use of coal at the close of the seventeenth century.

CHAPTER VI.

INCREASE OF MINING

DIFFICULTIES.-IMPROVEMENTS

IN MINING APPLIANCES.-INVENTION OF RAILWAYS.

"Mens agitat molem."

THE miners, no less than the smelters, had their difficulties during the seventeenth century, but of a totally different kind; for while the latter were suffering from too little fire, the former were embarrassed by too much water. So long as the demand for coal was small, and supplies were obtainable from shallow mines above the level of free-drainage, the mining of coal had been comparatively easy. But about the beginning of the seventeenth century, this happy state of matters was coming to an end. A great demand for coal had sprung up. Much of the most easily available coal had already been exhausted. To carry the workings down into the region below the level of free-drainage was at this time deemed impracticable. To procure sufficient coal from the previous sources was impossible. Hence the exhaustion of the coal supply was considered to be

already within sight. In 1610, Sir George Selby informed Parliament that the coal mines at Newcastle would not last for the term of their leases of twenty

one years.

It was at this period, when the coal trade was supposed to be hastening to its close, that the real work of mining coal only began. By the employment of machinery for raising the water from the mines, which now became general, the horizon of mining operations was indefinitely extended. But the effectual drainage of the mines was a work of the greatest difficulty, as is sufficiently evidenced by the innumerable patents which were taken out during the course of the century for machines invented for the purpose. Indeed the seventeenth century may not inaptly be termed the wet period of coal mining.

The improvements introduced into coal mining at this time were due to a considerable extent to adventurers, who were attracted into the coal trade by the increased importance now attaching to it, and by the advance in the value of coal. Among these a gentleman named Beamont, or Beaumont, makes a prominent figure, many new and ingenious contrivances being introduced by him into the Newcastle-on-Tyne district.

The earliest historian of Newcastle, writing in 1649, refers to this matter in the following terms:

"Some south gentlemen have upon great hope of benefit come into this country (i.e. district) to hazard their monies in coal