The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1919-08-03
Typical scenes at Sipsey mines.


liz it depends upon how you look at
& it) 1 have one of those omnivorous
appetites for knowledge that prowls out
into the byways and hedges seeking what
ever it may devour, and recently 1 have
become obsessed with the consuming idea
that I'd like to know something about
coal
Now, do you know, friends O. mine,
that as long as I've lived in this won
derful Birmingham district, which is nigh
on to '.umpty- years, have never
even as much as poked my little old.
saucy "retrousse'' nose inside of a coal
mine until last Tuesday when I left my
card at "Sipsey?"
I didn't even have a speaking &C
quaintance" with "Old King Coal' or
any of his family, merely a 'bowing &C
quaintance;" in fact, my only knowl-
edge of the Coal family consisted of
the fact that Ills Nibs" is an intimate
occupant of our one and only cellar, and
that he is one of the "warmest members"
of society we have with us, member
that we could no more do without than
We could do without food or lights, or
friends or foes!
AS for knowing anything about the an
cestry of coal, its forbears or it's pres
ent relations, knew just about as much
as I do about the ichthyosaurf or tet-
ragonal trisoctahedron, which is nothing
at all. but I'll say this. that after a
day spent in making the acquaintance
of Sipsey coal, l found that nothing has
more savory reputation; while it's face
is as black as the ace of spades, we
don't judge it at its face value, but look
at its record, shake its ancestral tree
and learn of its habits and procivities,
which are commendable to a degree.
I always thought until 1 went to Sip
sey the other day that coal was just
coal-'coal COAL 1 knew of course the
difference between bitumnous coal and
anthracite, but not a word about SUBJ
bituminous or semi-anthracite and as for
the work of the dynamochemical process,
which in short is the Transformation of
the fuel from the peat stage (the consen-
sus of opinion on the origin of coal''
being overwhelmingly in favor of the hy-
pothesis that coal of all ages has been
formed from peat or primary rank of
coal; that is. the progressive reduction of
the volatile matter of the fuel, or as it
has sometimes been expressed, 1.-THE devo-
utilization or carbonization" of the coal
well, on this subject, my mind was just
about as blank as any breakfast plate
you ever saw
The only people I imagine who know
anything about these high sounding
things are chemists, biologists and pale
ontologists, and not one registers on my
list of friends.
Any way, as l was about to say before
this digression, found out a lot of
things for myself about coal when Wis
tied Sipsey, one of which is that this
mineral is very much like a nervous
woman-it is very temperamental; any
little old thing affects it, such as heat or
cold. good or bad treatment, and it seems
TO me that it is always in some sort of
vtate of upheaval, like the story of the
little boy at discrimination time when
the superintendent questioned him
about "genders'' and zones" and the
youngster being a strictly lone dead
person dixie myself stir had his mind on
the grammar examination of the day be-
fore, so when the superintendent asked
him to tell him about the different zones
he promptly answered:
There are two kinds of zones-the mas
culine and the feminine. The masculine is
always either temperate or Incorporate
and the feminine is always either frigid
or torrid.''
That's sort Of the way with coal,
it strikes me; and then, another thing l
learned about coal that maybe you don't
know-it's awfully friendly and human;
= wants sxRpataxssaa Kindness; and 1t