The aegis & intelligencer. [volume] (Bel Air, Md.) 1864-1923, 1902-08-15
BOTTLED SUNSHINE.
NATURES GREAT FACTORY IN WHICH
is PRODUCED COAL.

NATURES GREAT FACTORY IN WHICH
is PRODUCED COAL.
Lump of the Mineral Tells It's In
teresGng Million Year History In
Few WOrds-A Wonderful Proc
eHs of Evolution.
Your life to mine is as Il second to q
thousand years. l will let you know
that in my time have seen such sights
as would make you gasp in astorish-
ment. Once, in untold ages past, long
before man had appeared on this old
world. was alive. Yes, the dirty old
piece of coal WIS living thing i'll those
dim. distant ages. A thing of beauty,
too--a thing 10 be admired. ! was q
fern. Not such Il paltry thing as you
decorate your homes with and grow In
little earthenware affairs. My trunk
alone measured live feet across.
Yet was nothing out of the ordinary.
In those days there were many little
plants forty feet or 50 in height. Ev-
cry bit of coal you toss about in such
needless fashion once WAS living
plant-a plant which grew and flour
ished, even as your plants of today
grow AMI flourish. But in these de-
generate days plants are poor. feeble
little things. Plants were plants in
those days We had no pctted and
pampered ferns. We had no houses Of
glass. artiiicially kept warm so that
the poor little dearS shouldn't get cold.
Those We're the days OF real ferns, of
healthy ferns free from all npwf;ingied
nonsense about fertilizers and soils and
aspects and such childish weaknesses.
In those early days the earth was not
as it Is today. 1t was hotter, for it
had cooled from globe of molten rock.
Its atmosphere was heavy with warm
vapors; close and oppressive, you would
call it, but it just suited us, as we grew
and luxuriated in 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 a great
pool Of water, which was fed by slug
strous reeds On the other side stretch
ed a vast swamp and a dark forest of
tangled vegetation. For hundreds OF
miles there WAS no break to this forest
beyond few hogs and pools of bra ckish
water. The sun Shone hot upon me. so
no wonder | grew well in this humid
atmosphere. Then there We're frightful
storms, when mighty trees were hung
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 Il 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 were thrown down
by hurricanes: fresh ones grew and fell
victims to storms. So it went on for
long centuries until the last forest grew
on the top of Il great thickness of bur-
led trees. ferns and mosses. Amid this
tastic and uncouth animals. Round
about me they made the forest resound
with their hideous bel!owngs. They
were so strangely shaped that 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 | grew so well 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 were deep under
the sea. Thus we stopped for count
less years. and heavy bed of sand ac-
cumulated above us. Then. lust as
slowly. we arose until we formed
forests-trees whose limbs were tan
gled with enormous festoons and gar
lands of strange climbing plants. Ter
rible thunderstorms alone broke the ST.
lence Of these wooded solitudcs 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 were
formed-vast layers. which took ages
to form-until there was
depth of 10000 feet of hard baked wood
and sand. Of coal and dirt. Look at
me, and you will find that you can
trace my markings In every pit you
can find hundreds of delicate fern
leaves and mosses as perfect as when
alive. You can see even the veins of
the fragile fronds. so beautifully press
ed are they. Dirty. old coal indeed!
1t was the sun which made me.
aDSOfDeu MS raSS tnell. w nen you
burn me. | give them back again.
am mass of bottled sunshine. Do you
realize that the fire you watch is the
sunshine which blazed in those solemn
forests innumerable ages ago? 1t is no
flight of fancy to say that | am bottled
sunshine: II Is Il fact.
Microscopic Matter.
Particles of matter too small to he
discerned with the naked eye float
through the atmosphere and bear. like
microscopic fleet, uncountable mil
lions of organisms whose combined at
tack suf1ices to render large fraction
of the human race miserable.