The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-04-14
NATURAL GAS, PETROLEUM, COAL AND THEIR RELATIONSHIP
 FORMATION AND PRIORITY
By R. H. LEINAD

origin. but the manner of it's being changed or transmitted to coal is an open question: Admitting that during the carbonigerous day, period, age or epoch, the coal deposits were formed in a tropical or semi-tropical climate: that fern like plants grew to the height ef our forest trees and as dense as are the forests along the Amazon river today; that they grew and matured rapidly; that they fell down "in place." as La Conte says; that the earth sank and rose as Steele tells us: is it not strain on our eredulity to say that in the iden- tlcal place that more than a score of such depressions occurred. that as many times the earth rose and just enough so that plants would grow in the swamp like forests only 10 be deluged with croded mud and silt, until as we have in more than one place thousands of feet oi such filling and raising and 10 or more workable layers of coal.
 That even in Alaska and Siberia there are coal deposits, so that the climate there must have been somewhat like the torrid zone of today; animals that lived on leaves and grass were There in abundance; and that the change came so suddenly as to intomb herds of mas tadons or mammoths, and other animals that live only in warm climate.
 We are willing, if 1t were necessary. to accept the idea that the axis and orbit of our earth were different from today. and that coal was formed In the northern hemisphere and at another time in the southern hemisphere, but We would like the semb1ance of evil dence at least
 In West Virginia there are some 1000 square miles of coal deposits; the con figuration of the country in large areas resembles saw teeth. five known layers CT coal occur; the upper, three have been eroded that more than 30 per cent of the entire coal deposits are gone gone where? Along the Kanawba river. where mines are now being worked, thousands of tons of crushed coal or culm gets into the river year. ly; floods carry it down the river, and 1t settles in pools or basins. Just so the billions of tons of eroded coal of West Virginia must have been deposited somewhere in the great central sea- the Mississippi basin Please remember that the eroded matter in large amounts did not have to be changed into coal-it was>already coal.
 Professor Steele says: "Petroleum is probably the product of 'distillation of organic matter, while Professor Dan m says, Petroleum is a result of the 'decompositon of vegetable substance.'
 We shall all endeavor to explain these glaring contradictions; we will
 
 ture, and cite examples similar, that are occurring every day. We believe, to use homely old expression, that the cart has been placed before the horse"
 We have seen in South America coal in process of formation; We have seen oil expressed from shales by hydraulic pressure, and I have tapped gas along the anticline of the Chesapeake peninsula formed by decomposition of vegetable growth: thousands of obsery- CTS have seen and done all this and more. We have seen the escaping gases from volcanic Assures caught and analysed; gases just like those that are forming today; just such as we tap at various depths under the surface of the earth. If we are able to give an added interest to Investigating the Book of His Works" we shall be gratified We are not orthodox as to "Eons of ages or Chilliads of epochs," whatever that may mean, for we do not believe that mill lions of years were necessary for our Creator to complete His work of any geological day.