coal-beds having been at one time a forest, growing under the full power of a brilliant sun, the result of solar forces, produced then, as now, by chemical phenomena taking place in the sun itself. Every cubic yard of coal in every coal-bed is the result of a very slow, but constant, change of a mass of vegetable matter; that change being analogous to the process of rotting in a large heap of succulent plants. The change has been so slow, and continued under a constantly-increasing pressure, that but few of the gaseous constituents have escaped, and nearly all those physical forces which were used in the task of producing the woody matter of the plant have been held prisoners in the vegetable matter which constitutes coal. How vast, then, must be the store of power which is preserved in the coal deposits of these islands!
We are now raising from our coal-pits nearly one hundred and ten millions of tons of coal annually. Of this quantity we are exporting to our colonial possessions and foreign parts about ten million tons, reserving nearly a hundred million tons of coal for our home consumption. Not many less than one hundred thousand steam-boilers are in constant use in these islands, producing steam—to blow the blast for smelting the iron-ore—to urge the mills for rolling, crushing, and cutting with giant power—to twirl the spindle—and to urge the shuttle. For every purpose, from rolling cyclopean masses of metal into form to weaving silky textures of the most filmy fineness, steam is used, and this steam is an exact representative of the coal employed, a large allowance being made for the imperfections of human machinery. This requires a little explanation. Coal is a compound of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen, the last two elements existing in quantities so small, as compared with the carbon, that they may be rejected from our consideration. The heat which we obtain in burning the coal is almost all derived from the carbon; the hydrogen in burning produces some heat, but for our purpose it is sufficient to confine attention to the carbon only.
One pound of pure coal yields, in combining with oxygen in combustion, theoretically, an energy equal to the power of lifting 10,808,000 pounds one foot high. The quantity of heat necessary to raise a pound of water one degree will raise 772 pounds one foot. A pound of coal burning should yield 14,000 units of heat, or 772 x 14,000=10,808,000 pounds, as above. Such is the theoretical value of a pound of pure coal. Many of our coal-seams are about a yard in thickness; several important seams are much thicker than this, and one well-known seam, the thick coal of South Staffordshire, is ten yards in thickness. This, however, concerns us no further than that it is useful in conveying to the mind some idea of the enormous reservoir of power which is buried in our coal formations. One square yard of the coal from a yard-thick seam—that is, in fact, a cubic yard of coal—weighs about 2,240 pounds avoirdupois; the reserved energy in that cube of coal is
