Herald and news. [volume] (West Randolph, Vt.) 1878-1943, 1888-11-22
cIIRIosITIEs oE COAL.
Tho Almost Uncomfortable Variety Of Sub
stances Derived from Pit-Coal.


Tho Almost InconoeiVabIe Variety of Sub
stances Derived from Pit-COal.
Docs any one except a practical
chemist ever stop to think of all the
substances which we get from pit-coal
and the almost inconeeivable variety
OF their uses? Every body is familiar
with those OF them that are in daily
use, such as gas, Illuminating oils,
coke and paraffine. but of the greater
part few persons know even the names,
science advances so rapidly and its
nomenclature is so extensive and SO
abstruse. 1t is no wonder that mer-
chants and manufacturers take adVan-
tage of this ignorance to foist upon the
public articles OF food. OF drink, or for
the toilet that. if they are not always
dangerous to the health, have not in
them a particle of the substances
which they pretend to contain. Though
pit-coal has been known for some hum
dreds of years, the discovery of its
numberless products is confined to the
present century. Illuminating gas
was unknown hundred years ago.
Petroleum has been in use only about
forty years, and it is scarcely more
than fifty since some one discovered
that stone coal was inhammable. Nearly
all the other products derived from
soft coal have been discovered and APP
piled in the interests OF science or OF
fraud within the last twenty-five years.
The first thought in regard to coal
is that it is mado to give heat or
warmth; the next that one OF its
principal uses is to illuminate. But
there are obtained from it the means
of producing over four hundred colors,
or shades OF color. among the chief of
which are saffron. violet-blue, and in
digo. There are also obtained great
variety Of perfumes-cinnamon, bitter
almonds, queen OF the meadows,
Glove, wintergreen. anis, camphor,
thymol Ga new French odor), vaniline
and heliotropine. Some OF these are
used for ilayoring Among the explo-
sive agents whose discovery has been
caused by the war spirit Of the last few
years in Europe are two called dinit-
robenzine, or bellite, and picrates To
medicine coal has given hypnone.
salicylic acid, naphtol, phenol and
antipyrine. Benzine and naphthaline
are powerful insecticides. There have
been found in ii ammoniacal salts
useful as fertilizers, tannin. sacchar-
inc Ca substitute for sugar.. the flavor
OF currants, raspberry and pepper,
pyrogallic acid and hydroquinone used
in photography, and various sub
stances familiar or unfamiliar, such as
tar, rosin, asphaltum. lubricating oils,
varnish, and the bitter taste of beer.
BY means OF some OF these we can have
wine without the juice of the grape.
beer without malt, preserves without
either fruit or sugar. perfumes with
out flowers, and coloring matters with
out the vegetable or animal substances
from which they have been hitherto
chiefly derived. What is to be the end
.. ~, ulIsf Are our coal-beds not only
TO warm and illuminate but to feed and
quench the thirst Of posterity? We
know that they are the luxuriant vege-
tation OF primal epochs stored and
compressed in a way that has made
them highly convenient for transport
and daily use. They are natures saw
ings laid up for rainy day of her
children, the human race, and it is
probable because they are composed of
the trees, the foliage, the plants, the
roots, the fruits and the flowers of the
ancient world that they now so largely
supply the place of our forests, plains.
fields and gardens. San Francisco
Chronicle.