Excerpt from Rhode Island CoalThe front bed of coal at Portsmouth outcrops in plain sight in the low cliffs bordering Narragansett Bay on the west side of the island of Rhode Island, and beds of coal or carbonaceous shale have been encountered in digging wells in many places in Rhode Island and the adjoining part of Massachusetts, so that the presence of coal in the State has been known from a very early time. The coal at Portsmouth seems to have been known at least as early as 1760. In February, 1768, patent was granted to parties who were about to dig after pit coal or sea coal in the hill at the back of the town of Providence, as shown by the acts and resolves of the Rhode Island General Assembly.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully, any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.