An interesting precursor step to coal mining was peat mining and the transport networks that evolved around it, especially in the Netherlands. Lowtechmagazine a

An interesting precursor step to coal mining was peat mining and the transport networks that evolved around it, especially in the Netherlands. Lowtechmagazine as usual has an excellent article [0] about it. [0] https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2011/09/peat-and-coal-fossil-fuels-in-pre-industrial-times.html https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2011/09/peat-and-coal-fossil...