The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1882-05-13
How Coal was Formed.

How Coal was Formed.
The coal fire in the CRATE sparkled
and cracked and sent its sharp pointed
flames up through the dark mass, Civ
ing even the smoke lurid hue.
We all sat gazing into the fire, max
ing fancies and thinking our own
thoughts, when Uncle John interrupt
ed the silence by saying:
"And so, at last, this coal fulfills its
mission. Perhaps you do not know how
coal is formedP"
We all drew our chairs nearer as
Julia exclaimed: "Do tell u.s.
"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 q whole life
time, there grew a vast forest. There
were no North and South American
Continents, nor even an Eastern and
Western World. An exceedingly 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 filled up
the shallow places, until they became
great swamps. In these swamps 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 trees
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 pro-
fuse vegetation, but even that is moth
ing compared to the ancient forests that
grew from the swamps. In these for
ests the trees and vegetation grew so
rapidly that they crowded 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.
After thousands of years, gradually,
the whole surface of the land began to
sink, until the sea once more flowed
over the place where forests had grown.
And, again, after more thousands OF
years, the drift matter and sand again
filled 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
forests there was layer of sand and
mud and shells and drift matter that
finally hardened into rock, forming the
limestone or sandstone that is found in
our coal mines. Miners 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 great deal of resin
GUS 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 car
bonic acid. When plants breathe or
decay they give off large quantities OF
carbonic acid gas, hence, this carbon
becomes part of the coal
THE constant pressure above, and
the water, caused this decaying vegeta-
ton 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 pressure and
deeply buried in the dark bosom of the
earth. it gradually and slowly hardens
into the coal we use in our CRATE.
"Sopetimes, 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 de-
cayed forest. 1t has only been within
the last few years that coal has come in
to extensive use in Europe and the
United States Not until the timber OF
the forests was fast disappearing did
coal come into demand, and yet it has
been stored away in measureless abun-
dance generations before we were
born. IN. Y. Tribune.