Custer weekly chronicle. [volume] (Custer City, S.D.) 1890-1931, 1893-07-08
St'wSs brought Into seevios "a England
4, In the Seventeenth Century.

Though coal had been employed for
centuries in the manufacture OF salt
% the shores Of the coal fields wood
had hitherto continued to be the fuel
at the inland ss!t works, says the CON-
temporary RerieW. The use OF coal ut
Nantwich is mentioned rs a novelty in
1856; at Droitwich wood fuel and
leaden pans were in use up till 1851.
In this era the sea-salt manufacture
was in the zenith of its prosperity.
But the substitution of coal for wood
IN the inland salt trade, aided by the
discovery Of rock salt, which took
place accidentally in boring for coal in
Cheshire. 1870, lei to the gradual de-
cline and final extinction Of the manu-
tacture OF salt on the coast. The ONLY
traces now remaining Of this once
li~ourishing industry exists in such
names rs Howdon Pans on the Tyne,
.Prestonpans on the Forth. Saltcoats in
Ayrshire. and Saltpans in Arran and
.kintyre, or in the Scottish proverb,
Garry salt 10 Dysart," synony
with the English Garry coal to New.
castle"
In no branch of industry was the
scarcity of wood more keenly felt than
in the smelling Of metalliferous ores.
Continued efforts to accomplish this
with coal began Immediately after the
accession Of James /. and were perse-
Vered in throughout the seventeenth
century. But for a prolonged period
the new fuel proved highly intractable.
and scheme after scheme ended ia
failure and disappointment.
After eighty years of oft repeated
trials the tantalizing problem remain
ed unsolved. Wood and charcoal still
held the field in the smelling furnaces,
and all hope of ever seeing coal substi-
tuted for them had well-nigh died out.
In 1886 Sir John Pettus, in his ESSAYS
on Words Metallick." concluded his
observations regarding sea coal aud
pit coal with the remark: ~rhese are
not useful to metals"
The unpromising prospect, however.
soon began to brighten. Immediately
after the revival of lead and copper
mining, which took place about 1892
having probably been moro or less
IN aUeyance since the Interruptions
accustomed by the civil wars when
The fisher left his skir to rock
On Tamars glittering waves:
The rugged miners rushed to war
From Mendip's sunless caves.
these ores came to be smelted with
coal. The extraction of silver from
lead with Goa! was accomplished by a
Mr.. Lydal in 1897, and the same indi.
vidual appears to have been the first
to successfully employ coal in the
smelling of tin in 1905.
The ores of iron proved more refrac,
tory, no substantial and permanent
success in smelling them with coal be.
ing obtained till near the middle OF
the eighteenth century. when the
manufacture of charcoal iron had
dwindled to very small proportions
in fact, was dying out for want of fuel.
1t then at length became an accom-
plished fact at Coalbrookdale Iron
works in Shropshire. The success was
at first ascribed TO the Shropshire coal.
but probably the employment of a
strong blast had a great deal to do
with It. From this the coal became
the life of the iron manufacture. The
ci-de-vant dropping trade rapidly
revived, and the latter part of the
eighteenth century saw coal-iron fur.
naces in successful operation through.
out the kingdom.