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