The Mirror, 1828.07.05, issue No. 321 | Page 6

not very distant when they must be put in requisition, to supply the vast demand of that populous manufacturing county, which at present consumes nearly all the produce of its own coal mines. In the midland counties, Staffordshire possesses the nearest coal districts to the metropolis, of any great extent; but such is the immense daily consumption of coal in the iron-furnaces and founderies, that it is generally believed this will be the first of our own coal-fields that will be exhausted. The thirty-feet bed of coal in the Dudley coal-field is of limited extent; and in the present mode of working it, more than two-thirds of the coal is wasted and left in the mine.
If we look to Whitehaven or Lancashire, or to any of the minor coal-fields in the west of England, we can derive little hope of their being able to supply London and the southern counties with coal, after the import of coal fails from Northumberland and Durham. We may thus anticipate a period not very remote, when all the English mines of coal and ironstone will be exhausted; and were we disposed to indulge in gloomy forebodings, like the ingenious authoress of the "Last Man," we might draw a melancholy picture of our starving and declining population, and describe some manufacturing patriarch, like the late venerable Richard Reynolds, travelling to see the last expiring English furnace, before he emigrated to distant regions.[1]
[1] The late Richard Reynolds, Esq., of Bristol, so distinguished for his unbounded benevolence, was the original proprietor of the great iron-works in Colebrook Dale, Shropshire. Owing, I believe, partly to the exhaustion of the best workable beds of coal and ironstone, and partly to the superior advantages possessed by the iron-founders in South Wales, the works at Colebrook Dale were finally relinquished, a short time before the death of Mr. Reynolds. With a natural attachment to the scenes where he had passed his early years, and to the pursuits by which he had honourably acquired his great wealth, he travelled from Bristol into Shropshire, to be present when the last of his furnaces was extinguished, in a valley where they had been continually burning for more than half a century.
Fortunately, however, we have in South Wales, adjoining the Bristol Channel, an almost exhaustless supply of coal and ironstone, which are yet nearly unwrought. It has been stated, that this coal-field extends over about twelve hundred square miles, and that there are twenty-three beds of workable coal, the total average thickness of which is ninety-five feet, and the quantity contained in each acre is 100,000 tons, or 65,000,000 tons per square mile. If from this we deduct one half for waste and for the minor extent of the upper beds, we shall have a clear supply of coal, equal to 32,000,000 tons per square mile. Now if we admit that the five million tons of coal from the Northumberland and Durham mines is equal to nearly one-third of the total consumption of coals in England, each square mile of the Welsh coal-field would yield coal for two years' consumption; and as there are from one thousand to twelve hundred square miles in this coal-field, it would supply England with fuel for two thousand years, after all our English coal-mines are worked out.
It is true, that a considerable part of the coal in South Wales is of an inferior quality, and is not at present burned for domestic use; but in proportion as coal becomes scarce, improved methods of burning it will assuredly be discovered, to prevent any sulphureous fumes from entering apartments, and also to economize the consumption of fuel in all our manufacturing processes.
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SONG.
(_For the Mirror._)
Thou hast not seen the tear-drops fill The eyes which worship thee; The deepest curse, the darkest ill, Hovers above--around me--still There are no tears for me!
Thou canst not know, why I should kneel For tears to heaven--in vain; The thousand changeless pangs we feel,-- The precious drops, perchance, might heal,-- They will not start again!
Thou canst not know what hopes will spring When I can gaze on thee, Even in the cold heart withering; Oh! thou to whom that heart must cling, Art more than tears to me!
THOMAS M---- S.
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HINTS FOR HEALTH.
["A very old and active correspondent," Tim Tobykin, has furnished us with the following interesting extracts from Dr. Rennie's Treatise on Gout and Nervous Diseases, just published. These, however, are but a portion of our correspondent's selections; and as they are written in a popular style and appear to be equally applicable to the welfare of all classes, they will doubtless be acceptable to our readers. We are not friendly to the introduction of purely professional matters into the pages of the MIRROR, but the following extracts are