Scotland Metal in Coal

An "iron instrument" apparently resembling the bit of a coal drill, was found inside a lump of coal taken from an excavation in Scotland in 1852 (Scotland again!). It was at first supposed that a miner had broken his drill while working the seam and had left the piece of metal embedded there. But the surface of the coal was unbroken: it showed no signs of drilling or any present or former opening by which the drill might have passed into it's interior. If such a thing were not quite impossible, according to every date in the geology text books, observers would have to believe that the coal would somehow have formed around the mysterious piece of metal.

(Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, 1:1:121, December 13, 1852