The Kenosha telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1860-1888, 1862-01-30

The lands on which he coal plants grow
have passed away; no hum"n eye will see their
like again--nC human eye saw Chem,u no huma n
hard touched leaf OF those gigantic trees and
lens No Gmner's ar ever portrayed those
dense forestsnCr surveyors pen map ped down
The broad estates on which they grew. But
certainly as the rays OF light tell us Of burn
ing metals in the sun, Sc will tue ~egration of
he earthly particles into which their long and
cleeping roots penetrated, and bidding of the
grams Of sand and clay which ultimately Gov
9, ed tharl up. tell us the story Of the ancient
pEySicsl condition under which GfeIess Trunks
md leaves and bougs became converted into
coal
Low were those ancient lands, surrounded
by broad marshy swamps bounded by shallow
estuarirs up which the sat sea water gently
rose and fell; can scarcely speak Of tide, so
smoothly between the stems and underground
OF water-oving tree rushes and through the
tan gled Jungle. it sluggishiy flowed. Into the
muddy waters of estuary and lake, and on the
cozy ground around, the leaves fell year by
year, as autumnal chIlls uuclothpd the trees
Aud the trees too, IN the roll OF time rotted at
their bases by the watery medium into which
! they grew, toppled over, and became immersed
in the boggy soil under a surface coating of
ferns and humble plants, mixed with MOSES
the rank heritage ever growing, roofing and
| fermenting. Green and verdant az top, dark,
! black heated, and distilling out from decaying
vegetable matters globules of bltumen below, to
mugle with and penetrate the half rooted,
closely matted mass OF leaves and fbres,an OF
potuus wood Then this put efying mass
was covered up with mud. so that neither gas
escaped nor bitumen foated away. Thus wac
the cOa-sHam formed. 1t was not open to the
day until il had dried into turf or rotted into
soil. But it WAS covered up at a certain stage
OF Its elaboration, and so preserved for human
use.
1t may have completed in the earth the FRO
cess OF It's conversion into coal bat it WAS or
/ iginally the produce Of the debriS of a living
vegetation buried under a covering of mud
The accumulation might have been long going
OH neal the surface, new vegetable matter heap
ed up at top, new bitumen secreting below
going on for ages before the mass was buried
in Covered in at last, stratum after stratum
OF mud and Of sand are piled over it, the weighs
OF the superintendent material presses down
the spungy, hbrOus upper part of the future
coal seam into the bltumnous lower portion
the slmlhuld bltumen IS squeezed upwards
amongst the compressed fbres and forced into
the pores Of the wood, the thickness of the veg
etable bed is reduced, and it becomes an al
5 most solid mass Ct wood. and vegetable fbr,
Iimpregnaled with the bitumeu distilled from
@ Itself Al II parted with Its gasses and bltumeI
before 1t had been covered in it might become
fossil peat But coal the produce never woulo
e have been. Briefly, then, such was the Origin
. Of coal. This view of the matter excludes a
once the anthracites from any right to the tern
+ OF coal Next to dispose oft igntes Lig
mites may or may not at some future period
h ages TO eome-be converted into coal They
are NOT coal yet; they are still! gnous. Tn
= Wo"uy structure is so well preserved in tn
brown coal OF Switzerland aud Germany that il
some places it is used tor rafrers beams an
:. other building purposes. The stages Of eab
u Grafton are not yet complete, which are requ
.slte for the production OF coal Ii is the bah
r not the man. Anthracite has lost its bitumen
{. II is the corpse. 1t might have been coal oDct
%. Il IS less now. Shae is the earth on which IN
corpse was laid. Il NAV be saturated vii
blood; but il = not the body