The Red Cloud chief., 1885-10-23
THE FORMATION OF COAL.
The Immense Time Taken TO Bring About
Present Ke>ults-Hnw the Question Of
Time 1. Determined.


The Immcns. Time Taken TO Bring About
Present Re>uIts-How the Question of
Time l. Determined.
According TO the calculations o!
prominent geologists. the stratum Of
earth that in some places i two miles
and a half thick, constituting the car
bonifcrous or coal age, was deposited
twenty-nine million year. ago. You
he made. The result i arrived al b.
find NJ out hOW the different Layers are
deposited. and estimating the Larger
ones by the smaller. As an example.
the am agencies are at work now rs
then. Deposits Ike those OF the DOyer
Cliffs, England, are being formed at
the bottom Of the ocean to-day; and by
noting the ages of time II takes Ia raise
a given area an inch. 10y mean seven of
tn" fast growing coral, We can form
something Of a guess how long il would
covering TO form.
During this time, Is the name indi-
Gates, the great beds Of coal in Penn
sylvania and other sections We're
deposited. and As We sit by 4 spark
ling coal-iire We are. after all.
watching n wood one the wood Of
t~wenty-nine million year, ago. II you
doubt this. grind a piece OF coal down
Us thin As possible and place it under a
a microscope. when the woody fiber
will be plainly seen.
Mineral coal is merely the element
If carbon mixed with other bituminous
substances. In the formation Of bi-
luminous coal there was loss Of three
fourths of wood and t~ive-siXths in that
of anthracite. There was 4 greater
loss by decomposition, and a reduction
Of bulk by pressure from above. and
from this il is assumed that it took
eight feet of leaves and twigS that
dropped from the trees and blew to-
ycthcr. packed closely. To make one
foo: Of bituminOuS coal. and twelve
feet To make one of anthracite.
To MAKE Il bed of coal thirty feet
thick. like the one in WilkcSbarre. the
bed of vegetable matter that produced
il must nave been three hundred and
sixty feet thick. Imagine the time it
would take for leaves to drop and
accumulate in a solid mass over a great
area rs high aS the tallc>t church-spirc.
Hence it is that seams or LAYERS Of pure
coal are rarely very thick. Often
times the laycr is rs thin Il Il piece Of
paper. but the average is about cight
feet. The Pittsburgh seam. AT the place
of the sane name, is Just this thickness.
and can he 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
Dire! miles. and even into Kentucky. 1t
varies also in thickness. "a in the Cum
bcrlaud basin it IS fourteen feet thick.
six n Wheeling. five nj Athens. O.. and
Oh the Great kanawha from two 10
three feet.
Coal-bcds form much quicker under
water. where the leaves Were held in
place and retained their gaseous parts
viii, h would be lost in the atmosphere.
The common leat-bcdS of TO-DAY are
perhaps coal-bedS of the future at
least. they resemble in origin the old
plant-bedS. Over one-tcnth Of ireland
is covered with peat-bed>. some forty
feet deep. In Massachusetts alone.
there are over l20. c0O. 900 cords of it.
Trees are often found buried in them,
and in Ireland a gigantic fossil elk is
found.
You may wonder where all the car
bon came from that seems to be the
prominent ingredient in coal. Ii is be-
lieyed that in the coal age there was
much more carbon in the atmosphere
than ut present, and during this time
it was stored away by the wonderful
plants that were SO fitted for the pur-
pose. This. too. purified the air for
the birds and higher forms that came
later.
The curious mineral oil. petroleum.
was formed similarly to coal by the de-
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-
duce it BY distillation: but oil. unlike
the coal. is found in the layers of all
ages. from the lower Silurian wells of
Kentucky and Tennessee 10 the Terti-
arv wells of Southern California.
Like other strata. that of the coal
age only appears at the surface 1T GER
tain places-in fact. the total number
of square miles of all the productive
coal-iields in the United States is only
l25. 600; in Scotland. 200 square miles;
Ireland. 1850. 90. and in England. p
30. 600 square mills Then again. it
is not always represented bv coal. Ii
contains stratiiied rocks If all kinds.
sometimes shales. sandStoncs. con-
-,n, RE- 49, Ill II
were all these layers placed there
Geology shows us that the Are JUS.
before the coal was one of >ubmergencc
that is. most of the land was under
water: lnt later. there was a rising.
and great tracts of SwamD-lanG ap-
peared. In them grew trees and yege-
tation totally unlike those OF to-day.
the ferns even being trees. and larv.
ones. too. The vegetation WAS won
deriully profuse. Curious fiowerless
plants called cryp,oCrams were COM
uion a sort OF ground pine. \ Lyco-
podIa that lives now. four or five fee,
high IN this wonderful time was s.xty
or seventy feet high. One Of the COM
mone>t t,se> was the Sirillaria, watch
grew 10 a height OF siN;v or seventy
feet also. an then branchei out with
long. narrow leaves. the trunk being
covered with curious scales. They ara
frequently found in m nes. AMI are ex-
fremeiy dangerous. Is they hollow ont.
become illed With sand and rock. ami
when broken off below. shoot down
upon the miners. Their roots are often
found spreading through the coal in
every direction.
The epoiendrons were another
form. and = tree of this genus was
found in a new castle mine forty fees
high and thirteen feet in diameter. The
branches were as perfrc, As possible