This book focuses on a turning point in the history of French coal-mining: the years 1850 to 1860, when modernization was being forced on mining in order to increase the scope of production in the changing market of industrialized France. In particular, this book looks at the coal-mines of central and south France, which had rich deposits with irregular dips, presenting special difficulties for mining. Students at the École des Mines at Paris visited those mines each summer, and the memoires and travel journals of these students formed the primary material for this history.