Black Country the globe". Burritt used the term to refer to a wider area than its common modern usage, however, devoting the first third of the book to Birmingham, which he described as "the capital, manufacturing centre, and growth of the Black Country", and writing "plant, in imagination, one foot of your compass at the Town Hall in Birmingham, and with the other sweep a circle of twenty miles [30 km] radius, and you will have, 'the Black Country". However he also described a 'Black Country proper' including Wolverhampton, Dudley, and several smaller towns. A few Black Country places such as Wolverhampton,
Black Country excluded by this definition because the coal here is too deep down and does not outcrop. The seam outcrop definition excludes areas in North Worcestershire and South Staffordshire. The first recorded use of the term "the Black Country" may be from a toast given by a Mr Simpson, town clerk to Lichfield, addressing a Reformer's meeting on 24 November 1841, published in the "Staffordshire Advertiser". He describes going into the "black country" of Staffordshire - Wolverhampton, Bilston and Tipton. In published literature, the first reference dates from 1846 and occurs in the novel "Colton Green: A Tale of the Black