EARLY COAL MIN ING IN NOVA SCOTIA*

called an industry, certainly not one of any importance, prior to the 19th century. It is interesting to know · that the French discovered coal in Cape Breton and probably in the Peninsula. in the 17th century; that fishermen and traders from New England took on small cargoes at Louisburg or helped themselves at convenient out-croppings along the coast of Cape Breton and the Peninsula in the first half of the 18th contw-y; that after the · French were finally defeated in the Seven Years War, Brigadier-General Howe and other high ranking Bxitish officers asked for large grants in Cape Breton in order to mine · coal; that, despite the refusal of the imperial government to grant land or lease mines in the Island from 1763 to 1784, certain merchants of Halifax with the unwarranted authority of the provincial governor opened a mine at Spanish River (Sydney) for one year in that period; that a few provincial officials an