The Columbian. [volume] (Bloomsburg, Pa.) 1866-1910, 1877-11-30
BY JULES VERNE,

During those geological periods,w when the
terrestrial apheroid was still in process of
formation, a thick atmosphere surrounded
it, completely saturated with watery vapols,
and largely impregnated with carbonic acid
Little by little these vapors were condensed
in diluvian rains, which fell as if thrown
from the necks of millions and thousand of
millions of bottles of seltzer-water. 1t was,
in truth, liquid charged with carbonc acid
spongy, subject to sudden or slow change of
form, at that time kept in a half fluid con
dtion as much by the heat of the sun as by
that of the internal mass. The internal
heat was not then confined to the center of
the globe. The crust of the earth being thin
and not thoroughly hardened, allowed the
heat to escape through its pores. Hence
phenomenal vegetation such no doubt as
is produced on the surface of the inferior
planets, Venus and Mercury, being nearer
than the earth to the central blazing lumi.
nary.
The soil OF the continents, still spongy,
was then covered with immense forests.
Carbonic acid, so necessary to the develop
ment of the vegetable kingdom, abounded
Besides, vegetation developed itself in the
form OF trees. There was not single her
baceous plant Everywhere were enormous
clumps of trees, without hswers, without
fruit, of monotonous appearance,
which could not have sutliced for
the nourishment of a single living creature.
The earth was not yet prepared for the ad.
vent of the animal kingdom.
Such was the composition OF these antedi
luvian forests. The class of vascular crypto-
gains prevailed The calamites, a variety
of the tire EuisetdceG, the LepidOdendrons a
kind of gigantic Lycopodiacede, seventy. five
feet in height and two or three feet in d
ameer, Asteropodiums ferns, SigiNaria of
gigantic proportions, of which they have
found impressions in the mines at Sainte-
Etienne; in fact all the enormous plants, to
which we find nothing analogous except
among the most humble specimens of the
habitable earth. Such were the few varieties
of species. but enormous in their develop.
ment, which composed exclusively the for.
ests of that period.
These trees were immerged in a sort Of
immense lagoon or swamp, made perfectly
moist by the union of fresh and salt waters
They eagerly assimilated the carbon which
they absorbed by degrees from the atmos
phere, yet unfit for the functions Of lite, apG
We may say that they were designed to store
up this carbon in the form of coal in tht
very bowels of the earth itself
In fact this was the period of earthquake
of those upheavals of the soil due to tn,
internal working and the plutonian labo
which suddenly modified the yet uncertain
features of the earth's surface. Here, swell
ings which became mountains there, gulf
which filled oceans and seas. Then, entr,
forests buried themselves in the crust Of the
earth, passing the shifting layers, until they
found a resting place, such as the primitive
soil or the granite rocks, or in sinking, form.
ed a resistless mass.
This is the geological order; the primitive
soil next, soil from other places, composed
of primary rocks then the secondary for
nation, in which the coal deposits occupy
the lower strata then the tertiary formation
and above, the alluvial deposits.
At this period, the waters unconfned and
widespread, tore from the scarcely formed
rocks materials to make schist, sandstone
and limestone. These fell on the sub-for.
ests, and deposited the elements of the
strata which lie over the coal. In time
periods counted by millions of years-these
rocks hardened, formed layers, and, enclosed
under thick shell of pudding stone, schs'
sandstone, compact or friable, gravel and
pebbles, the whole mass of imprisoned
forests.
What took place in this gigantic crucible,
where was accumulated vegetable matter,
burned at various distances A truely
chemical operations a kind of distilatiou.
All the carbon that these vegetables contain
ed agglomerated, and by degrees the coal
was formed, under the double influence OF
an immense pressure and the high temper
ature produced by internal forces, so near it
at this period.
Thus, then, was one kingdom substituted
for another in this slow but irresistible re-
action. The vegetable was transformed into
the mineral. All these plants, which had
lived a vegetable life, under the active agency
of these early days. petrified. Some of the
substance enclosed in this vast herbatium
partially destroyed, left their imprint on
other products more rapidly mneralized
which preserved them, as it were, with 8
hydraulic engine of ncalculsble power. A
thu same time, the shells, the zoophytes, the
starfsh, polrypes, sprifarae, even fishes
lizards, brought in by the waters, left on tht
coal, still soft, their clear impression, as i
beautifully drawn.
We must here remark that all the plant
whose impressions have been found be lonl
; to the species now limited to equatoris
regions, We may thence conclude that a
this period heat was equalized over the glob
whether carried by currents of warm water
or caused by the inner heat reaching tn,
surface through the porus crust Thus i
explained the formation of carboniferous de
posits in every latitude of the earth.
Pressure seems to have played an impor
tant part in the formation of the carbonifor
Gus deposits. In fact, to its degree of powe
we owe the various kinds of coal used il
industrial pursuits. Thus, in the lowest bed
= of coal strata, we find the anthracite, whc
!. almost entirely deprived of volatile maters
!, contains the greatest amount of carbon. L
the highest beds on the contrary, appear
l. Ignite and fossil wood, substances in wbic
the quantity of carbon is infinitely less BE
IS tween these two strata, following the degre
a Of pressure applied, We find veins of graz
l. hites and coal, good or bad. 1t may b
affirmed that the lack of sufficient pressur
has prevented the bed of the peat marshe
a from being entirely changed.
;, Thus, the origin of coal, wherever founC