OF FOREST-TREES.

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Two or three short billets, covered with charcoal, last much longer,and with more life, than twice the quantity by itself, whether charcoalalone or billet; and the billets under the charcoal being undisturbed, willmelt as it were into charcoals of such a lasting size.

If small-coals be spread over the charcoal, where you burn it alone, itwill bind it to longer continuance ; and yet more, if the small-coal bemade of the roots of Thorns, Briers, and Brambles. Consult Lord BacomExp. 775.

The Quercus Marina (wrack or sea-weed) which comes in our oyster-barrels, laid under Newcastle coal to kindle it, (as the use is in some places,)will, as I am informed, make it out-last two great fires of simple coals,and maintain a glowing luculent heat without waste. This sort of fuel ismuch made use of in Malta and the Islands thereabout, especially to burnin their ovens; and the Peasant who first brought it into custom, I findhighly commended by an Author, as a great Benefactor to his country..The manner of gathering it, is to cut it in summer-time from the rocks,whereon it grows abundantly, and bringing it in boats or otherwise toland, spread and dry it in the sun like hay, turning and coeking it till itbe fully cured. It makes an excellent fire alone, and roasts to admiration;and when all is burnt, the ashes make one of the best manures for land inthe world for the time they continue in virtue. This fuel adds much life,continuance, and aid to our sullen sea-coal; and if the main ocean shouldafford fuel, (as the Barnacles and Soland-geese are said to do in some part sof Scotland with the very sticks of their nests) we in these Isles may thankourselves if we be not warm. These few particulars I but mention toanimate improvements, and encourage ingenious attempts to detect momcheap and useful procefses for ways of charring coals, peat, and the likefuliginous materials, as the accomplished Mr. Boyle has intimated to us inthe fifth of those his precious Efsays concerning the usefulnefs of NaturalPhilosophy , part ii. chap. vii. to which I refer the curious. In the meantime, were not he worthy a statue of gold, that (falvo to our Newcastletrade and seminary of mariners) should in this penury of fire-wood aboutso monstrous a devourer as this vast city, (poisoned with smoke and soot)find out an expedient that should, within the space of five and twentyyears, free it from all this hellish and pernicious fog, by furnishing it with.Volume II. K k

CHAP. IV.