Pine Bluff daily graphic., 1902-06-08
is PRODUCED COAL.
A Lump of the Mineral Tells Its In
terestinE Million Year History IN
Few wnrds-A Wonderful Proc
ess of Evolution.

Few wnrds-A Wonderful Proc
ess Of Evolution.
Your life t. mine is as 4 second to
thousand years. VIII let you Eno"
that in ny time have seen such sights
as would make you gasp in astonish-
ment Once. in untold ages past, long
before man had appeared OIL this Old
world. was alive. Yes, the dirty Old
piece Of coal was a living thing in those
dim, distant ages. a thing of beauty.
too-a thing to be admired. | was
fern. Not such a paltry thing as you
decorate your homes with and grow in
little earticnWare affairs. My trunk
alone measured five feet across.
Yet was nothing out of the ordinary.
IN those days there were many little
plants forty feet Or so in height. Ey-
cry bit of coal you toss about in such
needless fashion once was a living
plant-a plant which grew and -four
ished, even as your plants of today
grow ana flourish. Eut in these de-
generate days plants ere poor, feeble
little things. Plants were plants in
those days. We had TO petted and
pamperel ferns We had 10 houses of
glass, art.1tctally kept warm SO that
the poor little Gears shouldn't get cold.
Those were The days OF real ferns, Of
healthy ferns free freln all newfangled
nonsense about fertilizers and soils and
aspects and such childish Weaknesses.
In t..osc early days the earth was not
as it IS today. 1t was hotter, for 1t
had c Died from q globe of molten rock.
It's atmosphere was heavy with warm
| yapors; close and oppressive You would
call il, but it just suited us as we grew
| and llXGriated n it. The earth's crust
| was thin and heaved about, gradually
raising vast continents from the bed of
the sea and Slowly dragging others
! deep into the ocean. 1t WAS time OF
| vast changes.
grew on the muddy banks of great
| pool OF water, which was fed by Slug
gish streams and bordered by mon
strous reeds On the other side stretch
| ed & vast swamp and q dark forest OF
| tangled vegetation. For hundreds OF
| miles there was no break to this forest
beyond few bogs and pools of brackish
water The sun shone hot upon me, so
no wonder grew well in this humid
atmosphere. Then there were frightful
storms, when mighty trees We're flung
down and swept by floods to the bottom
of the pool. This had gone on ages be-
fore appeared above ground; it went
on ages after The result was that the
/ bottom Of the pool was a mass of fallen
trees The newly felled trees pressed
on the bottom ones, and after thou
sands of years the water, the mud, the
heat and the pressure turned the
mighty beds of vegetable matter into
what you call coal.
In the dense forest it was somewhat
! the same Trees We're thrown down
by hurritsnne nness,; fresh ones grew and fell
victims to storms. So # went on for
| long centuries until the last forest grew
on the top of great thickness OF bur
led trees, ferns and MOSES. Amid this
exuberant vegetation were many fan
tastic and uncouth animals. Round
about me they made the forest resound
with their hideous bellowings. They
were so strangely shaped that l could
not we'll describe them to you. Even
some Of the flies had wings half foot
long from tip to tip.
One day saw commotion in the
midst of the lake far away from me.
The bed rose up and belched forth
steam and ashes and molten rock. In
the years that followed the fluid rock
rolled down the sides of the volcano
into the water below. Mighty clouds
Of steam arose, and as the vapor con-
densed it fell upon us as warm rain.
This is why l grew so we'll and why
the vegetation around me was so rank
ly luXuriant.
Many years after the land began to
sink Slowly it went down; slowly
the water closed over our heads until
all the mighty forests We're deep under
the sea- Thus we stopped for count
less years. ard heavy bed Of sand ac-
cumulateu above US. Then, just as
slowly. we arose until we formed a
vast elevated land. Then came other
| forests trees Whose limbs were tam
gled With enorm $ festoons and gar
lands Of strange climbing plants. Ter
rible thunderS3 .ms alone broke the 81
lence of thest wooded solitudes save
when some mighty fern crashed to the
ground or when the wind tore down
young branches and hurled them into
the swamps.
So all went on anew, as of old. and
the continent sank once more below
the waters of the ocean, taking with it
the beds of buried verdure Yet again
it rose, and again it sank. SO layer
upon layer of plants and Of sand We're
formed-vast layers, which took ages
unthinkable to form-until there was q
depth of 10000 feet of hard baked wood
and sand, of coal and dirt. Look ar