Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1885-10-15
THE FORMATION OF COAL.

/
According to the calculations O.
| prominent biologists, the stratum o.
earth that in some places is two mile:
and half thick, constituting the car
boniferous or coal age, was deposited
twenty-nine million years ago. You
will wonder how such calculation car
be made. The result is arrived at by
finding out hoao the different layers are
deposited, and estimating the larger
ones by the smaller. AS an example.
the same agencies are at work now as
then. Deposits like those of the Dover
Cliffs; England, are being formed at
the bottom of the ocean to-day; and by
noting the ages of time it takes to raise
given area an inch, by mean seven OF
the fast growing coral, we can form
something of guess how long it would
take for two and a half miles of solid
covering to form.
During this time, as the name indi-
Gates, the great beds of coal in Penn
sylvania and other sections were
deposited, and as we sit by spark
ling coal-fire we are, after all.
watching a wood one-the wood OF
twenty mine million years ago. If you
doubt this, grind piece of coal down
as thin as possible and place it under a
a 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 BIZ
luminous coal there was loss of three
fourths of wood and fve-sixths in that
of anthracite. There was greater
loss by decomposition, and reduction
of bulk by pressure from above, and
from this it is assumed that it took
eight feet of leaves and twigs that
dropped from the trees and blew to-
gether. packed closely, to make one
foot of bituminous coal, and twelve
feet to make one of anthracite.
To make bed of coal thirty feet
thick, like the one in Wilkesbarre, the
bed of vegetable matter that produced
it must have been three hundred and
sixty feet thick. Imagine the timesit
would take for leaves to drop and
accumulate in a solid mass over great
area as high as the tallest church-spire!
Hence it is that seams or layers of pure
coal are rarely very thick. Often
times the layer is as thin as piece of
paper. but the average is about eight
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 Monongahela River, and traced into
Virginia and Ohio, over an area of two
hundred and twenty-five by one hum
dred miles, and even into Kentucky. 1t
varies also in thickness. as in the Cum
berland basin it is fourteen feet thick,
six at Wheeling, five at Athens, O., and
ON the Great Kanawha from two to
three feet.
Coal-beds form much quicker under
water, where the leaves were held in
place and retained their gaseous parts
which would be lost in the atmosphere.
The common peat-beds of to-day are
perhaps coal-beds of the future-at
least, they resemble in origin the old
plant beds. Over one-tenth of Ireland
is covered with peatb beds, some forty
feet deep. In Massachusetts, alone,
there are over 12O,O00,OOO cords of it.
Trees are often found buried in them,
and in Ireland 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-
lieved that in the coal age there was
much more carbon in the atmosphere
than at 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 to the Terti-
airy wells of Southern California.
Like other strata, that of the coal
age only appears at the surface at GER
tain p1aces-in fact, the total number
of square miles of all the productive
coal-fields in the United States is only
125, 900; in Scotland, 1900 square miles;
Ireland, 1,85O.O00, and in England, q
100000 square miles. Then again, it
is not always represented by COAL 1t
contains stratified rocks of all kinds,
sometimes shales, sandstones, con-
glomerates. But how, you will ask,
were all these layers placed there?
Geology shows us that the age Just
before the coal was one of submergence
that is, most of the land was under
water: but later, there was a rising.
and great tracts of swamp-land APP
peared. In them grew trees and vege-
tation totally unlike those of to-day,
the ferns even being trees, and large
ones, too. The vegetation was won
derfully profuse. Curious fiowerless
plants called cryptograms were CON-
mona sort Of ground pine. A Lyco-
podia that lives now, four or five feet
high, in this wonderful time was sixty
or seventy feet high. One of the COM
monest trees was the SigilIaria, which
grew to a height of sixty or seventy
feet also, and then branched out with
long, narrow leaves, the trunk being
covered with curious scales. They are
frequently found in mines, and are ex-
tremely dangerous, as they hollow out.
become filled with sand and rock, and
when broken off below. shoot down
upon the miners, Their roots are often
found spreading through the coal in
every direction.
The Lepiodendrons were another
form. and tree of this genus was
found in a new castle mine forty feet
high and thirteen feet in diameter. The
branches were as perfect as possible
and about twenty in number. With all
this luxuriant foliage there were few,
if any, flowers, the great SCARED trees
and monster ferns forming the most
consnicuous objects out of the three
hundred and fifty coal plants that we