The Hazlehurst signal. (Hazlehurst, Miss.) 1883-1885, 1885-10-29
HOW OUR COAL WAS MADE.

The Immense Time Taken to Bring About
Present Results-IIow the Question OF
Time IL Determined.
According to the calculations OF
prominent geologist', the stratum OF
earth that in some places i two miles
and half thick, constituting the car.
b0nifcrous or coal age, was deposited
twcnty-ninc million years ago. You
will wonder how such u calculation can
be made. The result Is arrived ut by
find ng out how the different layers are
deposited. and estimating the larger
ones by the smaller As an example,
.hc same agencies arc at work now as
then. Deposits like those of tho Dover
Cliffs. England, are being formed at
the bottom of the ocean to-day; and by
noting the ages of time II takes to raise
a given area an inch. by mean seven OF
the ast.growing coral, we can form
something of guess how long 1t would
take for two and half miles OF solid
covering 10 iorih'
During this time, as tho name indi-
Gates, the great beds Of coal in Penn
sylvania and other sections were
deposited. and as we sit by spark.
linz coal.iirc We are, after all.
watching wool onc-thc wood OF
twcnty-ninc million years ago. II You
doubt this, grind piece of coal down
as thin as possible and place 1t under a
n microscope. when the woody fiber
will be plainly seen.
Mineral coal is merely the element
of carbon mixed with other bituminous
substances. in the formation OF bi'
luminous, coal thc:c was loss OF three
four,hs OF wood and iiyc-sixths In tina,
of anthracite. There was greater
loss by decomposition, and n reduction
of bulk by pressure from above, and
from this 1t is assumed that 1t took
eight feet OF leaves and twigs that
dropped from the trees and blew to-
gc,hcr. packed closely, to make ont
foo; of biiuminous coal, and twelv,
feet To make one of anthracite.
To make bed of coal thirty feet
thick, like the one in Wilkcsbarrc, the
bed of vegetable matter that produced
Il must have been three hundred and
sixty feet thick. Imagine the time ],
would take for leaves To drop and
accumulate in solid mass over q great
area rs high rs the tallcst church.spire
Hence II Is that seams or layers Of pure
coal are rarely very thick. Often
times the layer is rs thin rs q piece OF
paper, but the average is about cigh,
feet. The Pittsburgh seam. at the place
of the same name. is just this thickness
and can be seen on the high shores from
the Monongahcla River, and traced into
Virginia and Ohio, over an area OF two
hundred and twenty-five by one hun
drca miles, and even into Kentucky. II
wares also in thickness, rs In the Cum
bcrland basin it Is fourteen feet thick
six ut Wheeling, tive at Athens. o., and
on the Great Kanawha from two tc
three feet.
Coal.bcds form much quicker under
water. where the leaves were held II
place and retained their gaseous parts
which would be lost in the atmosphere
The common rcat-beds OF to-day ar'
perhaps coal.beds of the futurc-a
least, they resemble in origin the oil
plant.beds. Over one.tenth Of Irelant
Is covered with peat-beds, some fort!
feet deep. In Massachusetts, alone
there arc over l2O, ,COJ, 900 cords OF 1t
Trees are often found buried in them
and in Ireland n gigantic fossil elk i
found.
You may wonder where all the car
bon came from that seems to be tn
prominent ingredient in coal. II Is be
licved that in the coal age there wa
much more carbon in the atmosphcr
than at present, and during this tim
1t was stored away by the wonderful
plants that were so fitted for the pur
pose. This. too, purified the air 10
tic birds and higher forms that cam
later.
The curious mineral oil. petroleum
was formed similarly to coal by the dc
composition of vegetable or animal re
mains, either marine or terrestrial
buried in mud. in time slowly changing
into oil, or some materials that pro
duco it by dlstillation; but oil. unlik
the coal. is found In Ahe layers of al
ages, from tho lower Silurian wells
Kentucky and Tennessee to the Tertl
AIRY wells Of Southern California.
Like other strata, that Of the cos
age only appears at the surface at Gel
lain places-in fact, the total numbe
of square miles of all the productiv
coal.felds in the United States is onl
| Ia, 900; in Scotland, 1000 square miles
Ireland, 1880. 900, and in England, 2
250,OO0 square miles. Ttcn again.
Is not always represented by coal.
contains stratiiled rocks Of all kind