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Quotation from The Travels of Marco Polo by Marco Polo (with Rustichello da Pisa)
“It is a fact that all over the country of Cathay there is a kind of black stones existing in beds in the mountains, which they dig out and burn like firewood.”
The Travels of Marco Polo, Book II, Chapter XXX, trans. Yule–Cordier
Marco describes coal, then little used in Europe, and the daily hot baths it makes possible in Cathay.
Citation: "It is a fact that all over the country of Cathay there is a kind of black stones existing in beds in the mountains, which they dig out and burn like firewood." — Marco Polo (with Rustichello da Pisa), The Travels of Marco Polo, Book II, Chapter XXX, trans. Yule–Cordier. (id the-travels-of-marco-polo-q5)
Portrait: Marco Polo Mosaic from Palazzo Tursi, Salviati, Public domain.
