The Barre daily times. (Barre, Vt.) 1897-1959, 1914-05-02
RESINS IN COAL.
The "Pitch Pine" Was Special Contribu-
tor to the Heat Values of Goals.

To the head OF the family who has
shoveled coal during the long winter it
matters little what his coal is made from
so long as it gives reasonable amount
of heat and is paid for. Yet it is true
that the heating value of the coal that
he uses, as well as the kind, depends
in part on the Ingredient matter, and
also on the geologic processes to which
the peat from which the coal was formed
has been subjected. The relation OF
certain types of ingredient materials TO
certain qualities OF coal has received
considerable attention from the geolo-
gists of the United States Geological
Survey and the survey has Just pub
lshed short report, professional paper
50, part K, discussing the occurrence and
effects OF resins in Goals.
''Resins," under which are included the
"rosin" of commerce, the copal from
which varnish is made, the amber used
in jewelry, and host of other similar
materials, are seeretions generated in
some OF the cells or vessels in plants
OF many different kinds. One of the
most familiar of the producing
trees is the pitch pine, in which the
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
not containing resins, the hydrogen and
carbon being the sources of the heat.
The larger the amount of resin the hot
ter the fire. Many a 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. Resins add heat value,
not only to the woods that contain them
but also TO the Goals.
Being more resistant to decay under
water than the wood cells and other it's
sues of the plants and trees from which
the peats OF boys and conforming
swamps are produced, the resin humps
and particles are generally left to be
buried in the peat deposits, even when
most of the surrounding wood has rot
ted away and disappeared. In this way
they are sometimes concentrated in
quantity so that, together with wakes,
likewise of high heat value, they form
considerable portions of the vegetable
debris in the peat, Peat is the mother
substance which, after deep burial in the
crust of the earth, has been converted
into coal. The kind of the peat largely
determines the type of the coal.
In the paper above mentioned, David
White reports the almost invariable
presence of resins in the brown lignites
and in the subbituminous ranks of coal
and emphasizes the part played by the
resin, which in some Goals is very abund-
ant. in contributing to the heating pow
err of these fuels. A careful examination
of most OF these Goals will generally
reveal Jumps of resin that are visible
to the naked eye. The Goals mined in
some localities contain abundant large
humps of resin, some as large as wal
nuts. In places the glistening amber
like resin forms large part of the coal !
Beautiful samples of this sort are found
in some of the coal beds in the Philip |
pine islands. The amount of resin in !
particles is vastly greater
than that in humps visible to the naked |
eve.