The weekly mountain Democrat. [volume] (Placerville, El Dorado County, Calif.) 1861-1862, 1861-12-14
The Origin Of Coal.

Various opinions have been put forth
respecting the origin Of coal. The follow
ing is by X. Hunt, F. r. S, author of
The Poetry of Science" in late article
in the 81. Jtmes n.ondon) 4Vd1deine::
1t has been somewhat too hastily said
that coal is formed directly from wood,
and that much Of it-iS found is fctain its
woody structure. There is great doubt
on this point. That wood may be event
ually converted into coal is admitted =
but in changing, it entirely loses the form
of wOod-rctains no evidence Of liber.-
II may, under the influences of heat and
moisture, be converted into bituminouS
mass, which is eventually consolidated
into coal but We cannot discover any
evidence of wood being transmitted direct.
ly to coal. The remains of woody trees
found fossil in the coal measure strata may
become limestone, may be iron ore--cer-
tain it is they are never coal. The prob.
ability is, that the coal mass itself was
produced from cactus like plants, from
club'mOSseS, or peat MOSES, or from
aquatic plants, either marine or fresh
water.
The vegetable mass, whatever may have
been its origin, from which our beds Of
fossil fuel are derived, may have been
formed from plants which grew on the
spot where We now find it, and the under
clay, as it is called, is supposed to be the
soil in which the plants grew or it may
have been. removed by the waters in u
plastic state, iloatcd out into the deltaS or
seas, and eventually, in obedience II the
law of gravity, have sunk to the bed Of
the then existing waters.
Knowing that many Of these coal-bcdS
are now several thousand feet below the
surface, we have either TO suppose, if we
adopt the first hypothesis, gradual sub
Sidcnce Of the earth to the depth at which
the coal is now found or, if we prefer
the second, to imagine thu filling up Of
the seas, after the coal has been deposited,
by enormous beds Of sandstone or shale.
Sir Henry dc la Bachc describes section
near Swansea having total thickness of
1926 feet =; in this there are ten principal
MASSES Of sandstone, one of these 800 feet
thick. They are separated by masses of
Shalc, vary ing in thickness from ten to
fifty feet. The differentiated coal beds
sixteen in number, are generally from one
to five feet ;hick--oLc of them, which has
two or three layers of clay interposcd,
attaining nine feet.
TaktRg- this instance only, we learn
that there have been sixteen different
formations Of coal; that these have, each
one Of them, been covered up with hun
dredS of feet Of sandstone and shalc.-
The subsistence of the carth'S crust is
surrounded with difficulties of no common
Order--thc filling up of an ancient sea to
the-depth of more than three thousand
feet requires conditions which we can
scarcely conceive to have cxi>tcd--and in
either case we seem to require ages Of
repo>e, during which beautiful Flora
drank in the sunshine, followed by ages
during which sand was deposited, bearing
down with it but little evidence of there
being any Vegetable life. Science has
advanced far into the earth's changes;
but let us not deceive ourselves by sup
posing We have as yet heard the voice of
nature proclaiming the true phenomena
Of our coal formations.