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Title: The Story of a Piece of Coal What It Is, Whence It Comes, and Whither It Goes

Author: Edward A. Martin

Release Date: June 28, 2004 [EBook #12762]

Language: English

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THE STORY OF A PIECE OF COAL

WHAT IT IS, WHENCE IT COMES, AND WHITHER IT GOES

BY EDWARD A. MARTIN, F.G.S.

1896

PREFACE.

The knowledge of the marvels which a piece of coal possesses within itself, and which in obedience to processes of man's invention it is always willing to exhibit to an observant enquirer, is not so widespread, perhaps, as it should be, and the aim of this little book, this record of one page of geological history, has been to bring together the principal facts and wonders connected with it into the focus of a few pages, where, side by side, would be found the record of its vegetable and mineral history, its discovery and early use, its bearings on the great fog-problem, its useful illuminating gas and oils, the question of the possible exhaustion of British supplies, and other important and interesting bearings of coal or its products.

In the whole realm of natural history, in the widest sense of the term, there is nothing which could be cited which has so benefited, so interested, I might almost say, so excited mankind, as have the wonderful discoveries of the various products distilled from gas-tar, itself a distillate of coal.

Coal touches the interests of the botanist, the geologist, and the physicist; the chemist, the sanitarian, and the merchant.

In the little work now before the reader I have endeavoured to recount, without going into unnecessary detail, the wonderful story of a piece of coal.

E.A.M.

THORNTON HEATH,

February, 1896.

CONTENTS.

I. THE ORIGIN OF COAL AND THE PLANTS OF WHICH IT IS COMPOSED

II. A GENERAL VIEW OF THE COAL-BEARING STRATA

III. VARIOUS FORMS OF COAL AND CARBON

IV. THE COAL-MINE AND ITS DANGERS

V. EARLY HISTORY—ITS USE AND ITS ABUSE

VI. HOW GAS IS MADE—ILLUMINATING OILS AND BYE-PRODUCTS

VII. THE COAL SUPPLIES OF THE WORLD

VIII. THE COAL-TAR COLOURS

CHART SHEWING THE PRODUCTS OF COAL

GENERAL INDEX

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

FIG. 1. Stigmaria " 2. Annularia radiata " 3. Rhacopteris inaequilatera " 4. Frond of Pecopteris " 5. Pecopteris Serlii " 6. Sphenopteris affinis " 7. Catamites Suckowii " 8. Calamocladus grandis " 9. Asterophyllites foliosa " 10. Spenophyllum cuneifolium " 11. Cast of Lepidodendron " 12. Lepidodendron longifolium " 13. Lepidodendron aculeatum " 14. Lepidostrobus " 15. Lycopodites " 16. Stigmaria ficoides " 17. Section of Stigmaria " 18. Sigillarian trunks in sandstone " 19. Productus " 20. Encrinite " 21. Encrinital limestone " 22. Various encrinites " 23. Cyathophyllum " 24. Archegosaurus minor " 25. Psammodus porosus " 26. Orthoceras " 27. Fenestella retepora " 28. Goniatites " 29. Aviculopecten papyraceus " 30. Fragment of Lepidodendron " 31. Engine-house at head of a Coal-Pit " 32. Gas Jet and Davy Lamp " 33. Part of a Sigillarian trunk " 34. Inside a Gas-holder " 35. Filling Retorts by Machinery " 36. "Condensers" " 37. "Washers" " 38. "Purifiers"

CHAPTER I.

THE ORIGIN OF COAL AND THE PLANTS OF WHICH IT IS COMPOSED.

From the homely scuttle of coal at the side of the hearth to the gorgeously verdant vegetation of a forest of mammoth trees, might have appeared a somewhat far cry in the eyes of those who lived some fifty years ago. But there are few now who do not know what was the origin of the coal which they use so freely, and which in obedience to their demand has been brought up more than a thousand feet from the bowels of the earth; and, although familiarity has in a sense bred contempt for that which a few shillings will always purchase, in all probability a stray thought does occasionally cross one's mind, giving birth to feelings of a more or less thankful nature that such a store of heat and light was long ago laid up in this earth of ours for our use, when as yet man was not destined to put in an appearance for many, many ages to come. We can scarcely imagine the industrial condition of our country in the absence of so fortunate a supply of coal; and the many good things which are obtained from it, and the uses to which, as we shall see, it can be put, do indeed demand recognition.

Were our present forests uprooted and overthrown, to be covered by sedimentary deposits such as those which cover our coal-seams, the amount of coal which would be thereby formed for use in some future age, would amount to a thickness of perhaps two or three inches at most, and yet, in one coal-field alone, that of Westphalia, the 117 most important seams, if placed one above the other in immediate succession, would amount to no less than 294 feet of coal. From this it is possible to form a faint idea of the enormous growths of vegetation required to form some of our representative coal beds. But the coal is not found in one continuous bed. These numerous seams of coal are interspersed between many thousands of feet of sedimentary deposits, the whole of which form the "coal-measures." Now, each of these seams represents the growth of a forest, and to explain the whole series it is necessary to suppose that between each deposit the land became overwhelmed by the waters of the sea or lake, and after a long subaqueous period, was again raised into dry land, ready to become the birth-place of another forest, which would again beget, under similarly repeated conditions, another seam of coal. Of the conditions necessary to bring these changes about we will speak later on, but this instance is sufficient to show how inadequate the quantity of fuel would be, were we dependent entirely on our own existing forest growths.

However, we will leave for the present the fascinating pursuit of theorising as to the how and wherefore of these vast beds of coal, relegating the geological part of the study of the carboniferous system to a future chapter, where will be found some more detailed account of the position of the coal-seams in the strata which contain them. At present the actual details of the coal itself will demand our attention.

Coal is the mineral which has resulted, after the lapse of thousands of thousands of years, from the accumulations of vegetable