The leader., 1899-10-25
It. Charles Street, New Orleans, La.

compressed that the forms Of the plant
composing it cannot usually he seen.
But when a piece of it is made so thin
that it will transmit light, and is then
subjected to powerful microscope, its
vegetable structure may readily be dis
tinguished. Immediately under every
separate seam of coal there is a stratum
of what is known as fire clay. This
stratum is always present and contains
in great abundance the fossil impress
sions of roots and stems and twigs,
showing that it was once the soil from
which vegetation grew luXuriantly. 1t
is common also to find fossil tree stems
lying mashed fat between the layers
of black slate which form the roofs of
coal mines. as well as the impressions
of the leaves, nuts and seeds which fell
from these trees while they were liv-
ing. In some beds of camel coal whole
trees have been found with roots,
branches, leaves and seeds complete,
and all converted into the same quality
of coal as that by which they were sur
rounded.
Biologists are of the opinion that bi-
luminous and anthracite Goals were
formed during the same period and un-
der like conditions. Originally they
were all bituminous, but during the
violent contortiops and upheavals of
the earth's crust at the close of the car
boniferous age the bituminous Goals in
volved in that disturbance were
l. I hp
consequent expulsion of volatile mat
ter, from bituminous to anthracite.
Camel coal is variety of bituminous
coal which burns with great freedom,
the flames of it atfording considerable
light. IT was called "candle coal by
the English people who first used it, as
it often served as a substitute for cam
dies. The name became corrupted to
"canner' and has so remained. 1t is
more compact than ordinary bitumln-
Gus coal and it can be wrought in lathe
and polished. A certain variety of it
found in Yorkshire. England, is man.
ufactured into kind of jewelry known
as Jet"
DR.. Homer Greene gives an interest
ing description of the climate OF Penn
sylvania during the conforming epoch.
The most remarkable features of the
vegetation of that period were the size
and abundance of its plants. Trees of
that time whose trunks were from one
to three feet in diameter, and which
grew to height of from 40 to 100 feet,
are represented at the present day by
similar species whose stems are only
n fraction of an inch in diameter and
but one to two feet high. But at that
time all conditions were favorable for
rapid and enormous vegetable
growth. The air was laden with carbon,
which is the principal food of plants
so laden, indeed, that man could not
have lived in it. The great humidity of
the atmosphere was another element
favorable to growth. Vegetation never
lacked an abundance of moisture either
at root or leaf. Then, too, the climate
was universally warm. Over the en-
tire surface of the earth the heat was
greater than it is to-day at the torrid
zone. With all these circumstances in
its favor vegetation could not help
fiourishing. The fossil impressions Of
more than 500 different species of plants
that grew at that time have been found
in the coal beds.
The most abundant of the plants of
the conforming era were the ferns.
Their fossil remains are found in great
profusion and variety in most of the
rocks of the coal-bearing strata. There
was also the plant known as the tree
fern" which attained height of 20 or
30 feet, and carried single great tuft
of leaves at its top. Next in Importance
to the ferns were gigantic mosses re-
sembling in kind the low" ."club" mosses
of the present, but vastly magnified.
They doubtless contribute the greatest
proportion of woody material to the
composition of coal. There were forest
trees, and their fossil trunks have been
found measuring from 100 to 130 feet
in length and from six to ten feet in
diameter. There were also pines, some
what resembling those of to-day, which
probably grew on high ground. Be-
sides these there were plants of the
horsetail family, which grew up with
long. reed-like. jointed stems 10 a
height of 20 feet or more and with a
diameter of 10 or IL inches.
1t is claimed that coal was mined in
England before the Roman invasion by
Julius Caesar. The cinder heaps found
among ruins of the time of Roman su-
premacy in the island appear to show
that coal was largely used by the people
of that age. BY the end of the thir-
burned to a considerable extent in Lon
don. The oldest coal workings in
America are near Richmond, Va. 1t is
supposed that coal was discovered and
mined there as early as 1850. Tradition
says that boy while hunting for craw-
fish chanced upon the outcrop of coal
bed which crosses the James river ~
miles above Richmond. Mining was,be-
gun and by the year 1775 the coal was
in general use in the neighborhood. 1t
played a part in the war for indepen-
dence by helping to make cannon balls,
and by 1889 it was being shipped to
Philadelphia and New York. During
the late civil war these mines were
seized by the confederate government
for the purpose of procuring fuel, and
they are still largely productive. This
coal bed has an area of about $50 square
miles and an average thickness of "a
feet. 1t is supposed TO contain about
5o.0Oo,ooo tons yet unmined. There is
reason to believe that the Innians knew
something of the use of coal
SMITH D. FRI.