Volume Twelve - Pre-Victorian to the Present Day - further aspects - Trials of Welsh and Mixed Coals . . .

All this has been accomplished within thirty years. The pioneers of the Welsh Coal Trade wisely judged that it was easier to overcome foreign than English prejudice in favour of anything which had the stamp of time and custom, and the first victory over north country coal was obtained in France. The sugar refiners of Nantes, and afterwards the Imperial navy, were compelled to allow its superiority, and immediately became consumers. Inch by inch the ground was contested by its powerful northern rival, but inch by inch that rival was beaten off the field.

Favoured by nature with fine navigable rivers running in the very midst of the mineral basin, and comparatively close to the pits themselves, the northern steam coal could be put on ship board shillings per ton cheaper than the South Wales coal, which paid a heavy toll to a lengthy railway; but notwithstanding the obstacles in price, in influence, and prestige, merit won its way, and the Aberdare steam coal became known and used as the cheapest and best anywhere to be found, for the purposes of steam navigation.

For vessels of war its smokeless quality gave it a peculiar recommendation.With the Newcastle coal, if danger were urgent and steam must be got up quickly, a dense volume of smoke, a pillar of cloud, would immediately make a mark for the enemy. If when the day was done and no harm had ensued, the fires were not then let down to clear the tubes of soot, the flue would catch, and the cloud by day would be succeeded by a pillar of fire by night. With these disadvantages, whether the new coal made its way or not in the commercial marine it might have been predicted with certainty that it would gain and keep its hold upon the navies of the world.

It was after the Russian war, during which the northern coal masters had been excluded from a share in the Government contracts, that they watched with intense interest a final experiment made at the request of the Lords of the Admiralty on board the African steamer.

The result is thus stated by the Newcastle Chronicle of August 6, I860:— "In the quantity of water evaporated there is a considerable difference in favour of the Welsh coals, the power of evaporation being 20.820 better than our Newcastle coals. In other words, four tons of Welsh steam coal, according to the experiments of Messrs. Atherton and Taplin, will do the same amount of work as five tons of Newcastle steam coals.