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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

Character set encoding: ASCII

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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