Connecticut western news., 1872-04-26
Sunshine in Coal.

A lump of coal, it is often said, is made up of sunbeams. We could be- ieve this more readily of the diamonds, which is just crystal of carbon, for it is so bright and sparkling, and makes brilliant sunshine in shady place. But even the dull, black coal has been formed of the sunshine of long forgotten sum- mers. Every sunbeam that fell upon the club-mosses and ferns of the old coal forests enabled them to withdraw the minute, unseen carbon from the air, and form out of it their own solid tissue. They thus caged and imprisoned the floating light itself, and wrought its bright threads in their loom into the beautiful patterns of stem and leaf which they showed.
 To form one of the little rings of wood in the trunk of one of the old pines took the sunshine of long summer falling upon all its thousand leaves and who can tell how much sunshine has been | lie concealed under our feet This prisoned sunshine we set free whenever
 we kindle fire of coals. When the sun ceases to shine upon us in these cold,
 misty days, we draw upon the sunshine
 of million years ago to drive away the
 frost and make us comfortable. The
 source of all labor is the sun and we
 get the benefit of his labor when we
 burn the coal or the wood in which he
 has condensed and preserved it. No ray
 of sunshine has ever been wasted or
 thrown away. It is because nature has
 been so thrifty in her household ways
 that we are enabled to be so prodigal of
 our resources to-day, spending more than
 one hundred millions of tons of coal
 every year, and with that vast consump-
 tion of sun labor producing all the varied
 and extraordinary work that we do un-
 der the sun. Why is 8 lump of coal
 which every one knows contains all the
 colors of the rainbow? Why is it black, if it is made up of the green stems and
 branches and leaves of plants :? It is be-
 cause its particles are so formed and are
 ranged as to take in all the light that
 falls upon it, without giving back any portion. A white object reflects all the
 light, and black object absorbs all the
 light What becomes, then, of the colors
 which the black coal has withdrawn iron, the sunshine ? Are they lost ? No nothing in this world is lost. Everything is accounted for. When anything has
 served its purpose in one form, it seems to vanish altogether but it reappears ir : another form, and in it works anew There is everywhere change, but not loss A growing plant absorbs some of the colors of the sunbeams that nourish it and reflects others in it's prevailing hut yellow, or blue, or red, or purple But the colors that it absorbs are no lost they generally reappear in some other or after part of the plant. So tn, , colors of the sunshine that are absorbed 7 in the black coal come out in the coloEet t flames of the blazing fire. The red ant ? yellow flame over which you warm you ] hands is just the flower into which tn 3 sunshine, concealed and stored up in tn , coal for ages, has blossomed. But nor . than this 1; the lost colors of the rainbow in coal are brought out still more strik 3 ingly by our modern manufactures l Every one has heard of, and very man, 3 persons have seen, whatmare called tn 8 coal-tar colors. Richest and brightes 5 hues of blue and green, and mauve an T magenta, and rose and yellow, are ob l tained from tar, and tar is obtained fro1 l coal.
 r There are hidden beauties in every @ thing, and there are wonders in the fir Il stranger than any faces and castles an : pictures that the fancy sees in it's glowin heat in the twilight hours-wonders, tn 7 half of which has not been told.-IH U Coal and Iron Record.