Western Reserve chronicle. [volume] (Warren, Ohio) 1855-1921, 1873-07-09
ORIGIN OFCOAL.

6nOnn IL dS l1O NOdA A1SdSuEco vi bhC
geologists consist Of a series of sand
stones, shales, limestones, fireclays
iron ores and beds Of coal in manifold
alterations. The coal is now uni
versally held by Scientific men to have
been derived from the decomposition
of vegetable matter, the leaves and
stems of ancient plants and trees
which grew and became decomposed
AMI mineralized on the spot where
the coal is now found; while the su.
perincumbent strata have been formed
from the sediments of the water which
flowed over the carbonicius accumu-
lation during the subsistence of the
land.
At this period in the history of the
earth immense marshes and swamps
occupied vast areas of surface, from
which there arose a profuse and luxu-
RANT Vegetation, consisting of numer-
Gus, beautiful and various plants,
varying in size from small moses to
stately trees, which year after year
dopped their leaves and fruit, and in
time died themselves. New forests
arose and died in succession; and thus
growth and decay went on through
the slowly moving centuries, until
there was accumulated an enormous
mass of Vegetable tissue, like the pull
py mass of peat bog of the present
day. Then, through the agency of
subterranean movements, there fol-
lowed q period of subsidenee. a grad
ual sinking of the land; the waters
flowed over the surface and deposited
mud and sand, which now form the
shale and sandstone roofs of the mi
ner, beneath which he hews out the
coal.
The subsidence period was not one
of continual duration. Long pauses
occurred. when new elevations of the
land took place and new jungles and
swamps were formed, favorable to the
growth of the coal floor, the decayed
forests were again covered with shale
and sandstone, by. the gradual sinking
OF the land. These periods of eleva-
ton and subsistence appeared and dis
appeared alternately as century after
century rolled away, until the various
beds of coal, and the vast masses of
associated rocks which compose the
coal bearing strata of the eaTbOnifer-
Gus system of the earth were deposit
eds,
Many geological writers maintain
that during the carboniferous era the
was intensely hot and
saturated with EapOr and ascharged
with undue proportions of carbonic
acid gas which had been liberated
from the interior ofthe earth, through
the agency of volcanic erruptions,
these conditions it was claimed being |
essential to the production of the coal
Vegetation; but as coal is found in
newer formation than the carbonifer-
Gus, the Goals of China belong to
Trassiac and those of the Pacific |
coast the Tertiary formations, and as
coal is undoubtedly forming now, in |
some place in the earth, it may be
fairly assumed that the climate of
the earboniferous age, though perhaps
more mild and equable, was not ma
terially unlike the climate of the
present age, only the plants and ami
mails were different. 70 II. L9.
"As we find it in the earth coal
forms are of a series of carbonaeius
which represent but differ
ent stages in q progressive change
from Vegetable tissue as found in the
living plant. In peat and Ignite
Drown coaD we witness the first steps
in the formation of coal. Peat is BIZ
Vegetation, generally
moses and other herbaceous plants,
which under favorable circumstances
aecumalates in marshes, hence called
peat bogs. Lignite is the product of
a similar change effected in woody
tissue; and because it retains in a
greater or less degree the form and
structure of wood it has received the
name it bears. Peat is the product Of
the present age. and lignites are found
Ia deposits of recent geological age.
In the older formations these carbon
aceous accumalations, still further
changes are 6itunlisaous coal. Where
special and local causes have operated
10 carry the change still further as
where the beds of coal have been in
volved in the upheavel of mountains I
and heat has acted upon it. it is con-
Verted into anthracite"
DIR. Newbury in Geological report OF Ohio.
J.,