Page:A tour through the northern counties of England, and the borders of Scotland - Volume II.djvu/223

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with collieries and iron-mines; the former of which, when worked out, often exhibits that striking phenomenon above-mentioned of a burning soil; for the gob or broken coal left behind in the works, being highly charged with sulphur frequently takes fire, sending up a smouldering flame accompanied with smoke, which, when night has assumed her reign, plays over the surface of the earth in a lam- bent flame of great extent. As long as the air has access to the materials, the combustion conti- nues; but when that is withdrawn, or a solid mass of coal interferes, it is immediately extinguished. This appearance, extraordinary to those who are un- accustomed to it, was much more awful, sixty years ago in the neighbourhood of Wednesbury, five mile-: from Wolverhampton, where a tract of ground con- taining eleven acres was seen at once, and that for a length of time, compleatly on fire. The environs of this village are famous for the quality and quan- tity of coal found on it, as well as remarkable for being the spot on which one of the first steam- engines was erected by its ingenious inventor, ("apt. Thomas Savery, at the commencement of the eighth century. The expansive force of steam, indeed, had been known, and applied, long before his time, both by die ancients and the moderns; but the mode of re-action by condensing the steam by the injection

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