New Britain herald., 1928-11-28
COAL IS BOTTLED SUNLIGHT Of YEARS
Latest Discovery Is of Deposits
 in Morocco

Discovery by French engineers s. large deposits ot coal in Morocco may write that country's name un- expectedly large on the future in- dustrial maps of the world" says bulletin from the Washington. D. c. headquarters of the National Geographic Society.
 Africa has always been chased with South America as the poorest of the continents in coal deposits.' continues the bulletin, and ikeli- hood of considerable industrial de- velopment in the fields dependent on fuel seemed limited to the neighborhood of the few small coal beds in Natal and Transvaal. South Africa.
 Bountiful to Great Britain
 "What coal means in the develop ment of country can best be un- derstood perhaps by considering the case of Great Britain. but some- thing of the importance of this fuel in the life of the entire modern world can be visualized easily enough by any American in sight of the trail Of smoke left by a railway train or steamship, or who can look upon factory chimney or even a radiator. 7
 Natures coal gifts to Great Brit ain were more bountiful than to any other European country; and 1t was in Scotland and England that Europe first saw the utilization of these black rocks on considerable scale. It is believed that the smiths of ancient Greece used small Quan- titles of coal in their forges. but lat CT the fuel apparently dropped from use. The Roman legions in England burned coal in their camp fires, but do not seem to have introduced the fuel into Rome.
 ''For the next 500 years coal was hardly mentioned in the records, but in 652 A. D. it was being used as fuel in several British monaster- ies. The first charter to mine coal in Great Britain was issued in Scot land in i239. and 30 years later the fuel was being shipped to London in steady though small quantities by the monks of Tynemouth. But the use of this fuel did not spread rap- idly to the rest of Europe. It was in 1295 that Marco Polo came back to Venice from China and astounded the Venetians with the assertion that the Chinese burned black rocks
 Engine Boomed Mining
 ''During the next few centuries the use of coal for household heat ing and cooking and by smiths and other small industrialists grew steadily in England and Scotland and mine after mine was opened and. worked in crude fashion. But it was not until after the invention of the steam engine in 17S4 that coal mining became a great key in- dustry. The effect of this new de- vice was two-fold. On the one hand it made possible the pumping of wa ter from the mines and the easy raising of coal to the surface from even the deepest workings. On the other hand it multiplied the fires to be fed with coal and so greatly stimulated the demand for the fuel. not only in Great Britain, but all over Europe and in America and Australia.
 To-day. especially in the temper ate zones, coal is the staff of life for industry and our particular type Z of civilization as truly as bread IS the staff of our bodily life. Goals contribution to transportation is ap- parent enough, but some of It's oth- CT vital services are not so evident. As a matter of fact nothing like our life in great cities could have de- veloped under our climatic condi' tions but for the warmth given by coal. It was simple enough in the log cabin, village, and manor-house days to maintain warmth in wintet by burning wood: but one can hard ly imagine huge modern skyscrapers and theaters as well as city homes heated solely by wood, even if our forests could supply the millions of cords of logs necessary.
 50 it is with light. Modern street lighting, and the lighting of office buildings and dwellings could not be carried on but for gas or electricity. and both imply in most cases the burning of coal or a coal product.
 New Chemical World
 "Coal in large part makes the construction of our buildings possi- ble. It bakcs bricks, burns lime and cement, and enters into the manu- facture of steel. It melts glass and smelts copper; and its pitch water proofs our cellars and covers our roofs.
 '"rhe distillation of coal opened up . whole new chemical world. Thou. sands of new chemical compounds have been built up from substances distilled out of a lump of coal-all the colOrs of the spectrum to em- bellish our cothes and draperies and ornaments: powerful explosives; fertilizers; oils and fuels; a sweeten. CT for our foods: a gas for our ball. looms: and invaluable substances for use by the sanitary engineer, the surgeon, and the physician.
 What is coal? It is stored up sunlight. WheE we burn coal to heat our homes today We are in ef- feet 'uncorking' the warmth of the sun that streamed down on our world a million or more years ago. Tbe sunlight became bottled as it does today. by causing the growth of vegetation into woody fiber. Ac- cording to the most widely accepted theory. this vegetable matter-the trunks, twigs, leaves and fruits of