Nature's Miracles, Volume 1

s have a beginning, we know that such a man did live and that the discovery that coal would burn was made. Coal, in the sense that we use the word here, is not mentioned in the Scriptures. Acco

petition was sent to parliament to have the use of it suppressed on the ground that it was a nuisance. Coal was used in Belgium, however,

ts of the world in the upper strata of the Paleozoic period. The age in whic

hracite coal is hard and stone-like in its texture, burning with scarcely any flame and no smoke. It produces a fire of intense heat when it is once ignited. There is another form of coal called cannel coal, which is a corruption of "candle coal," so called because a piece of this kind of coal when ignited will burn like a match or pine knot and give light like a candle. This is the richest of all the coal deposits in gases that are set free by heat, and for this reason is extensively used in the m

beds were formed during an age before the earth had cooled down to the temperature that it has at the present time-an age when vegetation was forced by the internal heat of the earth instead of having to receive all its warmth from the sun's rays as we do now. Some of our readers are familiar with what is common

the world. It is well known that peat is used as a fuel by many people, especially the peasantry of the old countries. If peat is pressed to a sufficient degree of hardness it burns in a manner not unlike some forms of coal. Peat is a vegetable formation and has been formed by the rank growth of various kinds of vegetation in swampy places. Of course, it lacks the purity of the coal that was formed during the carboniferous age, because of the much slower growth of vegetation now than during that time, and the opportunity that peat bogs offer for an intermixture of earthy with the vegetable matter. The fact that we find the imprint of trees and ferns and other vegetable growth of tropical varieties, as well as the fossils of reptiles, imb

after the coal beds, as the latter are foun

arying in thickness and separated by layers of shale and sandstone. How the s

sure during a long period of time. If we further examine the structure of a body of coal we find the impressions of limbs and branches as well as the leaves of trees and various kinds of plants. We shall further find that these impressions lie in a plant in the same direction as the line of cleavage. This is a point to be remembered, as it helps to explain the nature and structure of other formations than those of coal. Not only are leaves and branches of vegetable matter found, but fossils of reptiles, such as live on the land. Sometimes there is found the fossil of a great tr

ain elevated above the surface of the water and the same process of growth and decay was repeated. These oscillations of the earth up and down occurred at enormously long intervals, until all of the various coal strata with their intermediate formations were completed. After this we must suppose that the whole was submerged to a great depth and for a very long period of time, because of the great number and various kinds of rock formations laid down by water that lie on top of the coal measures. This tremendous weight, as it was gradually builded up, subjected these vegetable strata to an inconceivable pressure. In some places this pressure was much greater than in others, which undoubtedly is one of the reasons why we find such differences in

and builder of the trees and plants that were finally hermetically sealed under the great earth strata. The sun gathered up the materi

ce, to warm our houses, to drive the machinery of our factories, to send the locomotives flying across the continents and the steamships over the oceans. So i

have to be solved by the people of some future age, as the growth of wood will scarcely keep pace with the consumption of fuel. By that time