Excerpts from Germinal

Published in 1885; translation from French into English by Havelock Ellis published in 1894

Coal was the first fuel that ran the Industrial Revolution, the period when machines and factories came into widespread use in manufacturing. The steam engine, which uses the expansive quality of steam to move machinery, requires fuel to heat water to the boiling point, and coal was the most common fuel used for this purpose in the nineteenth century; it continues to be widely used in the twenty-first century. After the first practicable steam engine was introduced in England, in 1772, by James Watt (1736–1819), the demand for coal soared, especially as steam engines were adapted to power trains and ships. For many decades it was also used to heat homes and buildings. Coal provided the basic energy that replaced human muscle power, making it essential to the...