The Manitowoc pilot. [volume] (Manitowoc, Wis.) 1859-1932, 1875-01-07
Coal.

Well, boys, what are you looking at SO
eagerly: Only piece of coal, do you
say, Charlie: ! shouldn't suppose you
could find anything worth looking at in
a smutty piece of coal. All. well, | am
| glad my boys have found that only
| piece of coal, as Charlie calls it, is worth
| looking at.
think l can tell you something about
| it that will make you open your ewes
wider still. You know how astonlsheu
and puzzled you were the other night at
the tricks of the magic-man," who
turned beans into sugar-plums, ana did
all sorts of wonderful things before your
very eyes. Now this piece of coal is the
most wonderful piece of magic in the
world. Suppose | tell you that this hard
| black lump once had life Yes boys, |
am in earnest. That black lump is really
one of the most wonderful things in the
world. 1t was once delicate little plant,
turning ever to the sun and bending and
| nodding with every breeze. 1t is almost
| beyond belief, and | don't wonder that
you shake your heads. Many people
| older than you would do the same if told
that the coal, to which they owe so much,
and which they use quite as matter of
course, once made up great forests which
| covered vast areas. They know it
comes somehow out of the earth, and as
long as it continues to come and doesn't
| cost more than so much a ton they don't
| bother themselves with questions as to
what it is. | have no doubt many regard
it as peculiar kind of rock. want my
boys to know better, and so let us see if
| we can't explain the mystery about it.
Well, then, in the first place, plants
are composed principally of two gases
a 90 no
are oxygen and hydrogen. You can easily
| remember the word carbon. Now when
plant begins TO decay, these two gases
escape into the air, while the carbon
stays and forms coal. So remember that
coal is chiefly carbon, and it gets the
carbon from plants
| Since it has been proved that coal does
come from plants, and that our vegeta-
ton nowadays makes little or no coal, we
know that when the great beds of coal
were formed everything must have been
| specially arranged for it. The world
wasn't then as it is now. 1t was Just sky
and water, with here and there patches
| of land. There were great marshes
| everywhere. Sometimes these would dry
up and become dry land. Then again
| the sea would come rushing in over the
| land and form new marshes There were
| land. Only reptiles and marsh loving
| beasts roamed around in the soft clay.
All was quiet and desolate, yet it was
| not dreary time. In the marshes and
| on the land grew beautiful trees. Plants
ran wild everywhere. 1t was world of
| living green. Now, it was simply on &C
| count of the marshy land that this vege-
| tation made coal, while our own does
not
told you that a time was specially
planned for coalmaking AS the plants
| and leaves decayed they fell into the
water. The gases could still escape, but
the carbon, being covered from the &C
ton of the air, was left This is the sim
pie explanation. Silently, and with no
human eye to see, the work went on year
after year, century after century
n few of the plants in those days of
gigantic forests were like what we have
beautiful ferns as large as many trees.
Such now grow only in the tropics.
Horse-tails," as you call them, which
are now seldom over two feet high. grew
then as high as twenty feet Conifers
like our frs and pines and cedars, were
very abundant But the two most i'm
portant trees in coal-making have entire
ly disappeared from our forests One of
these had no branches but was covered
with leaves and crowned with a cluster
at the top. Sometimes they were sixty
feet high.
But you don't see how we know that
trees did make coal. There are several
reasons. If you should put a piece of
coal under microscope, and examine it
carefully, you would see the vegetable
fbers in it. 1t is the best proof we
could have. Then, besides, in many
places stems and leaves are found in the
coal, and sometimes trunks of trees are
standing in the beds. Again, wood con-
tains silica or sand, and this is found
also in coal. You don't understand it as
well as hope you will when you are
older; but you can believe it now, and
some day prove it for yourselves.
l want you to look at this bright, beau
tiful diamond. Put that black, smutty
piece of coal by the side of It. Wouldn't
you think they had about as little in
common as any two things in the world.
Yet they are made of the same sub
stance-carbon. And although dia-
monds are the most valuable of gems,
and eagerly sought after, the world could
get along without them much better
than without their black AID often
despised relation.-St. Nicaolas for Jan