Mineral Point tribune. (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1869-1938, 1882-09-28
The Coal Age.

on account or It's animals, Wnlcn are
mainly the same, in general charac-
ter, as in the preceding ages; but 1t
was productive of Il wonder peculiar
to itself, an enormously abundant
land of vegetation, the ruins or
rubbish of which carried into seas,
and there sunk to the bottom, were
afterwards covered over by sand and
mud beds, becoming in course of
time, the substance we now recog-
nize as coal. This was natural
transaction of vast importance to us,
seeing how much utility we find in
coal, both for warming our dwell
ings aud fol various manufactures,
as well as the production of steam,
bv which 50 great mechanical
power is generated Il may natur-
ally excite surprise that the vegetable
remains should have so completely
changed their character, and become
black. But this can be explained
by chemistry; and part of the marvel
becomes clear to the simplest under
standing when we come to consider
the familiar fact that damp hay,
thrown closely into n heap when
coming out OF heat, bee mes of a
dark color. The conclusion to which
most Biologists have arrived is, that
the earth, originally an incandescent
or highly heated mass, was gradually
cooled down-hot enough to reader
the early Gneiss and Mica-Schist
crystalline; cool enough during the
Grauwacke aud Silurian eras to per-
nit of marine corals, shell fish, and
crustacea: cooler still during the life
of the plated fishes of the Old Red
sandstone; and only sufficiently gen
ial throughout the Carboniferous
period to foster growth of terrestrial
vegetation all over its surface, to
which the existing jungles ard
growth of the tropics are but mere
barrenness in comparison. There
grew vast forests then, but there
were no North and South American
continents, nor even an Eastern and
Western world An exceedingly
small portion Of the globe was LAID
the rest was wide sea. In many
places the ocean was shallow, and
as years and centuries went by, the
sand and drift matter, already >pok-
en- of, filled up the shallow places,
until they became great swamps
whereon grew great forests The
great amount of "carbonic acid gas
that mingled with the air, and the
high degree OF warmth, a ong with
the constant moisture, caused these
forests to grow very rapidly. The
pine trees grew to immense size;
ferns grew as high as trees; and a
sort of club moss, that in our forests
never grows over three feet high, in
those forests grew eighty or 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 as we
said before, this is as nothing con
pared to the ancient forests that
grew from the swamps. Being too
much crowded, much of it died
down as fast as it grew, forests
growing and piling upon each other
as fast rs they grew, after which
the whole surface of the land began
to sink, until the sea once more
flowed over the place where forests
had grown
4 succession of such changes, as
we have described, took place;
forest growths, and submergencies
in the sea continuing for numbrrless
years; layers of sand, and mud, and
gravel, and shells, and drift matter,
between each layer, finally harding
INFO rock forming into limestone
and sandstone of coal mines, indi-
eating the number of times the coal
beds have been submerged.
Most of the trees OF these ancient
forest were pine trees, which contain
ed tar, ADD pitch, and great deal OF
resinous matter. Coal contains this,
which it received from the decayed
( pine. Coal IL pure carbon, and Is
black, because carbon is black. All
4 plants contain great deal of car
bonic acid. When they breathe or
decay, they give off large quantities
of it; hence the carbon became a
part of the coal.
The constant pressure above, and
the water, caused this decaying veg
citation to take first the form of peat,
which is a soft spungy sort of coal,
used by the peasantry of Ireland for
their fires. After the peat has lain
4 many thousands of years under
great pressure, and deeply buried in
the dark bosom of the earth, it
gradually and slowly hardens into
coal.
We have been reading the history
of the geological structure of our
State, commencing with its physical