The workingman's advocate. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1864-1877, 1873-08-30
Written for the woRkNsNAs's ADVOCATE.
The Origin Of Coal No. !


a. the ''coal measures" Of the geologists,
consist Of series of sandstones, shales,
limestones, 6reclays, iron ores and beds Of
coal in manifold alterations. The coal is
now unnecessarily held by scientific men to
have been formed from the decomposition
Of vegetable matter-the leaves and stems
of ancient plants and trees, which grew
and became decomposed and mineralized on
the spot where the coal is now found and
the associated rocks to have been derived
from the sediments of the water which
formed over the carbonaceous accunula-
tions during the subsidence Of the land.
Bischof, and others, among the earlier ge-
ologists, were Of the opinion that the car
bonaceous matter was an accumulation Of
vegetable detritus, which had been drifted
by rivers into bays and estuaries, and vast
RATS Of dead floating trees now accumulate
in the lower Mississippi. But careful ex
animation of the remains of the original
coal plants found in the floss Of the coal
has confirmed the theory, that the vegeta-
tion grew on the spot where it Is now bur
led.
During the coal formation period, in the
history of the earth, immense marshes or
swampy plains, which skirted the ocean, or
perhaps, formed low islands near the shore,
were covered with a profuse and luxuriant
vegetation, consisting of numerous, beau
tiful and various plants, varying in size
from small mosses to stately trees. Year
after year, these plants dropped 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 an enor-
nous mass of mingled vegetable tissue was
accumulated, like the pulpy mass of a peat
bog Of the present day At length, through
the agency Of subterranean movements, the
area of the coal marsh became depressed,
with much uniformity-the land gradually
and slowly sunk, and the waters OF the
ocean flowed in over the mass of vegetable
matter, bringing in mud and sand, which
settled at the bottom. Under the detritus
thus brought in, the decomposition occur
red which changed the dead vegetation into
mineral coal The sinking process went on
and the detritus continued to accumulate,
solidifying from below, and hardening and
COMPRISING into sandstones, shales, &c,
according to the nature of the sedlmentary
dispositions.
The subsidence movement was In time ar
rested, and was followed by long period
Of rest The waters of the ocean were
filed up, and new sub-aerial surface was
formed. New vegetation again took root
and grew and died. Generations of forests
succeeded each other, until matter was
again accumulated for the formation of a
second seam Of coal. Then followed
another downward movemement Of the
land, and another burial of the coal vege-
tation by the detritus of the water. The
set Of processes thus described we're re-
peated in the formation of every coal bed
and its incumbent strata. The periods of
elevation longer for the thicker seams, and
the subsidence periods longer for the great
er depths Of strata found between the diff
ferent beds.
Many geological writers maintain that
during the carboniferous age the atmos-
phere was intensely hot and saturated with
vapor, and was also charged with undue
proportions of carbonic acid gas, which had
been liberated from the interior Of the
earth, through the agency of volcanic ir-
ruptions these conditions it was claimed
being essential to the production Of the coal
vegetation. But as coal is found in newer
formations than the carbonlferous-th coal
of China belongs to the Trassiar, and that
of the Pacific coast, to the Tertiary forma-
tions and as coal is no doubt forming now
in some places of the earth, it may be fair
ly assumed that the climate Of the carbon
ferrous epoch. though perhaps more mild
and equable, was not unlike the climate Of
the present age, only the plants and ami
mails were different.
Instead of one peculiar coal bearing age,
all eras, perhaps, as well deserve to be
called carboniferous. Sir Charles Lyell, in
his principles of Geology" writing of the
formations of the delta of the Mississippi,
mentions instances of whole forests OF strata
sunk a. they grew, and covered to depth
of several hundred feet with an accumula-
ton of mud, sand, and vegetable soil, in
alternating beds, in thu same manner as the
coal marshes were covered up in the pri-
meval ages The Sunk Country, near
New Madrid, q water space nearly eighty
miles long, and thirty miles wide, caused
by the earthquake Of 1S11-lSl2, was filled
a. late a. the year 1876, with dead trees,
some standing erect in the water, others
fallen down, and lying in dense masses over
the bottom, and along the shore. He men
tions another case of a tract Of land, at
the mouth of the river Indus, larger than
the Lake of Geneva, which was converted
into an inland sea, in the year 1919, by an
L l.. L II al nrrnsr fruss ne
for fifty miles in length, and nearly sixteen
miles wide, was raised by the same shock
ten feet above the level Of the alluvial
plain.
The coal strata are full of the remains of
animal and vegetable life. Nearly thous-
and different coal plants have been de-
scribed by the geologists. Beneath nearly
every coal seam there is a stratum of fire
clay, the original land surface upon which
the coal vegetation took root and grew.
Rootlets, stumps Of trees, stems and dark
filaments, are often found imbedded as
they Qrew, in this underclay. Sometimes
the remains Of trees, standing up through
the coal and the rosf above, and then alb
ruptly stopping, the upper part having rot
ted and fallen off-are met with. In the
wear l844, at the Parkfeld colliery, near
Wolverhampton, in England, the workmen
mined into a quarter acre of the coal seam,
filed with stumps of trees standing as they
grew. The trunks hattened by the pres
sure Of the superintendent strata, and con
verted into coal, were found scattered
around in all directions, having evidently
been snapped Oh by storm, or sudden
inflow Of the water, during the sinking Of
the land, or by an earthquake shock. The
roof above the coal is often charged with
the remains Of lengthy preserved ferns,
Hattened trunks Of trees, pieces of bark,
branches and leaves, crossing each other in
promiscuous, but beautiful confusion, rival
ling all that may be seen in q princely con
servatory.
(ro M coErISUED.l