The Democratic advocate., 1882-06-24
How Coal was Formed.

The coal fre in the CRATE sparkled and
cracked and sent lis sharp pointed flames
up through the dark mass, giving ezen the
smoke a lurid hue.
We all sat gazing into the FIRE, making
fanciex and thinking our own thoughts,
when Uncle John interrupted the silence
BY saying
aAnd 20, at last, this coal falfls It's mis-
sion. Perhaps yOu do not know how coal
is formed y
well, began Uncle John, strOking his
long, white beard, many thousand years
ago. in fact, more years than any OF you
can count even in whole lifetime, there
grew q vast forest. There were no North
and South American Continents, nor even
an Eastern and Western World. An ex-
eeediagly small portion Of the globe was
land. the rest was a wide sea In many
places the ocean was shallow, and as years
went By the sand and drift matter filed up
the shallow places, until they became great
swamps. In these grew great forests
The great amount Of carbonic acid gas
that mingled with the air, and the high
degree of warmth, along with the constant
moisture, caused these forests to grow very
rapidly. The pine tree grew TO immense
size; ferns grew as high as trees; and sort
Of club moss, that in our forests never
grows over three feet high, in those forests
grew eighty and ninety feet high.
Along the damp, warm valley Of the
Amazon, in South America, and in the
tropics, grow our richest and most profuse
vegetation. but even that Is nothing COM
pared to the ancient forests that grew from
the swamps. In these forests the trees and
vegetation grew so rapidly that they crowd
ed upon each other Being too much
crowded, much of the vegetation died
down as rapidly as it had grown. Thus,
year after year, the old forest died down,
and above it grew the new, until one forest
was piled upon another.
Alter thousands of years, gradually, the
whole surface of the land began to sink,
until the sea once more flowed over the
place were forests had grown. And, again,
after thousands of years, the drift matter
and sand again filed up the shallow places,
and other forests grew in new swamps. As
years went by, they, too, were submerged
in the sea. This continued for numberless
years. Between each layer of decayed for
ests there was a layer of sand and mud and
shells and drift matter that finally hardened
into rock. forming the limestone or sand
stone that Is found in our coal mines. Mi
ners can tell just how many times the coal
beds have been submerged by the number
of LAYERS of sandstone or limestone.
Most of the trees of that ancient forest
were pine trees. Pine contains tar and
pitch and a great deal of resinous matter.
Coal also contains tar and pitch and rosin,
which it received from the decayed pine
Coal is pure carbon, and is black because
carbon is black. All plants contain great
deal of carbonic acid. When plants breathe
or decay they give off large quantities of
carbonic acid gas, hence, this carbon be-
comes part of the coal.
'sThe constant pressure above, and the
water, caused this decaying vegetation to
take first the form of peat. Peat is a soft,
spongy sort of coal, and it is much used by
the poor yeomanry of England and Ireland
for their fires. After the peat has lain
many thousands of years under great pres
sure and deeply buried in the dark bosom
of the earth, it gradually and slowly hard
ems into the coal we use in our CRATE.
Sometimes, in splitting open block of
coal you can plainly see the impress of
beautiful and perfectly formed leaves,
branches and twigs and vines. Our coal
is really, then, nothing but decayed for
est. 1t has only been within the last few
years that coal has come into extensive use
in Europe and the United States. Not
until the timber of the forests was fast dis
appearing did coal come into demand, and
vet it has been stored away in measureless
abundance generations before we were
born. ~ T. Tribune