all, he commanded three of his men to direct me to see his most admirable coal mines; which (if man can or could work wonders) is a wonder; for myself neither in any travels that I have been in, nor any history that I have read, or any discourse that I have heard, did never see, read, or hear of any work of man that might parallel or be equivalent with this unfellowed and unmatchable work: and though all I can say of it, cannot describe it according to the worthiness of his vigilant industry, that was both the occasion, inventor, and maintainer of it: yet rather than the memory of so rare an enterprise, and so accomplished a profit to the commonwealth shall be raked and smothered in the dust of oblivion, I will give a little touch at the description ot it, although I amongst writers, am like he that worse may hold the candle.
The mine hath two ways into it, the one by sea and the other by land; but a man may go into it by land, and return the same way if he please, and so he may enter into it by sea, and by sea he may come forth of it: but I for varietys sake went in by sea, and out by land. Now men may object, how can a man go into a mine, the entrance of it being into the sea, but that the sea will follow him, and so drown the mine? To which objection thus I answer, that at low water mark, the sea being ebbed away, and a great part of the sand bare; upon this
