Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1914-05-01
COAL FACTS FOR FAMILY
FROM GEOLOGICAL SURVEY
Report Shows Why There Is Resin
in Heat-Producer and Why
Steamboats, Blow UP.

To the head OF the family who has
been shoveling coal during the long WIN
ter it matters not what his coal Is made
from as long as it gives a reasonable
amount of heat and is paid for. And yet
this question Of the ingredient matter
and the geologic processes OF peat
from which coal is formed is considered
SO important by those who are not simply
shoyelers of coal that the United States
geological survey. through David White.
has made a study of the subject of the
effects of resins in Goals. Resins, under
which is included the rosin of COM
MERGE the copal from which yarnish is
made, the amber used in jewelry, and
many other similar materials, are secre-
tons generated in some of the cells or
vessels in plants of many different kinds.
One of the most familiar resin-producing
trees is the pitch pine, in which pitch is
resin.
Resins contain very much more hydro
gen and carbon compared to the amount
of oxygen than ordinary wood, so that,
other things being equal, the resinous
woods make much hotter fires than those
containing no resins. the hydrogen and
carbon being sources of the heat. The
larger the amount Of heat the hotter the
fire.
Resin Adds to Coal Heat.
Many Mississippi river steamboat was
blown up in the old days when. in order
to win a race. the barrels of resin in the
cargo were preached to feed the fires.
Resin adds heat power not only to the
woods which contain it, but also to the
Goals.
These are some of the interesting
Gid 10Th 70 NFf hi Ch q
dry reading to the layman. How did
resin get into the Goals and why are
some Goals more resinous than others?
These are some of the questions that
Mr.. White answers for the satisfaction
of the student and the efficiency expert
home.
This is why there is resin in coal. Be-
ing more resistant to decay under water
than the wood cells and other tissues
of the plants and trees from which the
peats of boys and conforming swamps
are produced. the resin Jumps and par
ticles are generally left to be buried In
the peat deposits. even when most OF
the surrounding wood has rotted away
and disappeared.
Peat the Mother Substance.
In this way they are sometimes con-
centrated in quantity so that, together
with wakes. likewise of heat value. they
form considerable portions of the vege-
table debris in the peat. Peat is the
mother substance which. after deep burial
in the crust of the earth, has been con-
verted into coal. The kind Of the peat
largely determines the type of the coal.
In his paper Mr.. White emphasizes the
part PLAYED by the resin, which In some
Goals is very abundant, in contributing
to the heating power of these fuels. In
some places the giittering amberlike
resin forms a large part of the coal
Beautiful samples of this sort are found
in the coal beds of the Philippine Is
lands.
Mr. White has found not only Jumps OF
amberlike resin in the bituminous coal
of the Paleozoic age in Indiana, Illinois
and Iowa. but he also shows that many
of the singular and long-ago extinct
types of vegetation that grew in the an
Gent peat swamps of the Paleozoic era
had trunks containing great quantities
of resinous substances.