cannel coal

noun, a type of hard, compact, fine-grained bituminous coal (now sometimes classified as an oil shale) which burns with a very bright flame, formerly much used for the production of coal oil and coal gas, and able to be cut and polished like jet for ornamental use; a variety of this. Also called ‘cannel coal’ (“cannel, n.3.” OED)

“On the poster was the price of coal, for cannel coal and chestnut coal and stove coal.”

“He used to talk about going out there and diving down and then taking a bushel basket and filling it with cannel coal and coming up to his boat and hauling it up and selling it off for 25 cents for a bushel of cannel coal.”

“Cannel coal’s big chunks of coal that are used sometimes in a blacksmith shop. You used to use it in a house, sometimes as heat.”