Southern standard. (McMinnville, Tenn.) 1879-current, 1888-09-01
Curiosities of Coal.
San Francisco Chronicle.

Does any one except practical
chemist ever stop to think of all the
substances which we get from pit coal
and the almost inconceivable variety
of their uses? Everybody is familiar
with those of them which 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
merchants and manufacturers take
advantage 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 hundreds of years,
the discovery of its numberless pro-
ducts is confined to the present CEN
fury. Illuminating gas was unknown
a 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 infiammable. Nearly all the
other products derived from soft coal
have been discovered and applied 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 made 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 col
ors, or shades of color, among the
chief of which are saffron, violet blue,
and indigo. There are also obtained
a great variety of perfumes-cinna-
mon, bitter almonds, queen of the
meadows, Glove, wintergreen, anise,
camphor, thymol Ga new French
odor,) vaniline, and heliotropine.
Some of these are used for hav0ring.
Among the explosive agents whose
discovery has been caused by the war
spirit of the last few years in Europe
are two called dinitrobenzine, or bel
lite, and picrates. TO medicine coal
has given hypnone, salicylic acid,
napthol, phenol, and antipyrine
Benzine and naphthaline are power.
full insecticides. There have been
found in it ammoniacal salts useful as
fertilizers, tannin, saccharine "a sub
stitute for sugar. the flavor of cur
rants, raspberry, and pepper, pyro
gallic acid and hydroquinone used il
photography, and various substance:
familiar or unfamiliar, such as tar
rosin, asphaltum, lubricating oils
varnish, and the bitter taste of beer
BY means of some of these we Cal
have wine without the juice of thu
grape, beer without malt, preserve:
without either fruit or sugar, per
fumes without flowers, and colorins
matters without the vegetable or ami
NAL substances from which they have
been hitherto chiefly derived.
What is to be the end of all this
Are our coal beds not only to warn
and illuminate, but to feed anC
quench the thirst of PROSPERITY? W.
know that they are the luxurian
vegetation of primal epochs stored
and compressed in a way that ha
made them highly convenient TO
transport and daily use. They ar,
natures savings laid up for rain.
day Of her children, the human race
and it is probably because they ar
composed of the trees, the foliage
the plants, the roots, the fruits, ant
the flowers of the ancient world tina
! they now so largely supply the plac
of our forests, plains, fields, ant
gardens.