116
THE SEASIDE LIBBAEY.
Vol. I.
absorbed by degrees from the atmosphere, yet
unfit for the functions of life, and we may say
that they were designed to store up this carbon
in the form of coal in the very bowels of the
earth itself.
In fact, this was the period of earthquakes
—of those upheavals of the soil due to the
Internal working and the plutonian labor which
suddenly modified theyet uncertain features of
Tthe earth's surface. Here, swellings which be-
came mountain^ there, gulfs which filled
oceans and seas. Then, entire forests buried
themselves in the crust of the earth, passing
the shifting layers, until they found a resting
place, such as the primitive soil or the granite
rocks, or in sinking, formed a resistless mass.
This is the geological order : the primitive
soil ; next, soil from other places, composed of
primary rocks ; then the secondary formation,
in which the coal deposits occupy the lower
strata ; then the tertiary formation, and above,
the alluvial deposits.
At this period, the waters unconfined and
widespread, tore from the scarcely formed rocks
materials to make schist, sandstone, and lime-
stone. These fell on the sub-forests, and de-
posited the elements of the strata which lie
over the coal. In time—periods counted by
millions of years—these rocks hardened, form-
ed layers, and, enclosed under a thick shell of
pudding-stone, schist, sandstone, compact or
friable, gravel and pebbles, the whole mass of
imprisoned forests.
What took place in this gigantic crucible,
where was accumulated vegetable matter,
buried at various distances ? A truly chemical
operation—a kind of distillation. All the car-
bon that these vegetables contained agglomer-
ated, and by degrees the coal was formed, un-
der the double influence of an immense pres-
sure and the high temperature produced by in-
ternal forces, so near it at this period.
Thus, then, was one kingdom substituted
for another in this slow but irresistible reaction.
The vegetable was transformed into the min-
eral. All these plants, which had lived a
vegetable life, under the active agency of these,
early days, petrified. Some of the substance
enclosed in this vast herbarium, partially de-
stroyed, left their imprint on other products
more rapidly mineralized, which pressed them,
as it were, with a hydraulic engine of incalcu-
lable power. At the same time, the shells, the
zoophytes, the starfish, polrypes, spirifarae,
even fishes, lizards, 'brought in by the waters,
left on the coal, still soft, their clear impres-
sion, as if beautifully drawn.
We must here remark that all the plants
whose impressions have been found belong to
the species now limited to equatorial regions.
We may thence conclude that at this period
heat was equalized over the globe, whether
carried by currents of warm water, or caused
by the inner heat reaching the surface through
the porus crust. Thus is explained the forma-
tion of carboniferous deposits in every latitude
of the earth.
Pressure seems to have played an important
part in the formation of the carboniferous de-
posits. In fact, to its degree of power we owe
the various kinds of coal used in industrial
pursuits. Thus, in the lowest beds of coal
strata, we find the anthracite, which, almost
entirely deprived of volatile material, contains
the greatest amount of carbon. In the highest
beds, on the contrary, appears lignite and fossil
wood, substances in which the quantity of car-
bon is infinitely less. Between these two
strata, following the degree of pressure applied,
we find veins of graphites and coal, good or
bad. It may be affirmed that the lack of suffi-
cient pressure has prevented the bed of the
peat marshes from being entirely changed.
Thus, the origin of coal, wherever found, is
simply this: The burying under the crust of
the earth of great forests of the geological
period, then mineralization of vegetation in the
course of time, under the influences of pressure
and heat, and the action of carbonic acid.
Meanwhile nature, usually so prodigal, has
not buried enough forests for a consumption
which may comprehend some thousands of
years.    The coal will fail one of these days,
that is certain. A forced rest will then be im-
posed on the engines of the world, if some new
combustible does not replace coal. At a pe-
riod more or less distant there will be no more
carboniferous deposits, unless those covered by
an eternal bed of snow, in Greenland and on
the borders of Baffins' Bay, the working of
which is next to an impossibility. It is inevi-
table fate. The coal business of America, still
prodigiously rich, those of Salt Lake, Oregon, j
and of California, will one day yield an insuffi- :
tient amount. It will be the same with the i
mines of Cape Breton and the St. Lawrence,
the deposits of the Alleghanies, Pennsylvania,
Virginia, Illinois, Indiana and Missouri. Even
if the carboniferous seams of North America
were ten times greatef than all the deposits of
the whole world, one hundred centuries will
not have passed before the million-mouthed
monster of industry will have devoured the last
morsel of the world's coal. The scarcity, we
know, will first be felt in the Old World.
There exist many beds of combustible ma-
terial at Natal, Zambeyi, Mozambique, and
Madagascar, but their regular working pre-
sents the greatest difficulties. Those of Bur-
mah China, Cochin China, Japan and Central
Asia will soon be exhausted. The English
will have certainly emptied Australia of her
coal products, rather freely buried, in its soil,
before the day when coal will fail in the United
Kingdom. When that period arrives, already
the carboniferous seams of Europe, worked to
their extreme limits, will have been aban-
doned.
We may judge from the following figures of
the quantities of coal which have been con-
sumed since the discovery of the first deposits.
The coal basins of Russia, Saxony, and Ba-
varia comprise six hundred thousand hectares
(a hectare is two acres, one rood, and thirty-
five perches) ; those of Spain, one hundred and
fifty thousand ; these of Bohemia and Austria,
one hundred and fifty thousand ; the basins of
Belgium, forty leagues long by three wide, also
count one hundred and fifty thousand hectares,
which extend under the territories of Liege,
Namur, Mens, and Charleroi. In France, the
basin situated between the Loire and the
Rhone, Rue-de-Gier, Sainte Etienne, Gwars,
Epinac, Blanzy, Creuzot—the works of Gard,
Alois, Grand Combe—those of Aveyron at
Aubin, the deposits of Carmaux, of> Barsac,
and Graissenac—in the north, Auzin, Valen-
ciennes, Lens, Bethune, will cover about
three hundred and fifty thousand hectares.
The richest coal country is, undeniably, tho
United Kingdom. This, excepting Ireland,
in which there is hardly any combustible ma-
terial, possesses enormous carboniferous riches ;
but, like all riches, they may be exhausted.
The most important of these different basins,
that of Newcastle, which occupies the sub-soil
of Northumberland County, produces, per year,
as much as thirty millions of tons ; that is,
nearly one-third of the amount consumed in
England, and more than double that produced
in France. The basin of Wales, which has
gathered quite a population of miners at Car-
diff, at Swansea, at Newport, produces annu-
ally ten million tons of the fine coal known by
that name. In the center are worked the
basins of the Connties of York, Lancaster,
Derby, and Stafford, less productive, hut yet
giving a considerable supply. Finally, in this
part of Scotland, situated between Edinburgh
and Glasgow, between these two arms of the
sea which indent it. for such a distance, is
spread one of tho greatest coal deposits of the
United Kingdom. Altogether, these various
basins comprise no less than one million six
hundred thousand hectares, and produce annu-
ally nearly one hundred millions of tons of coal.
But why discuss it ? The consumption will be-
come such, owing to the demands of industry
and commerce, that these riches will be ex-
hausted. The third thousand of the Christian
era will not be finished before the miner's hand
will have emptied in Europe these storehouses,
in which, to use a true illustration, is concen-
trated the solar heat of the first period.
This table will show, by the increase in the
consumption of coal, the periods assigned by
the last calculations to the exhaustion of com-
bustible minerals in Europe:
1,140 years.
800 "
750 "
300     "
France,    .
England,
Belgium,
Germany,
In America, allowing for the annual con-
sumption of five hundred million tons, the de-
posits will produce coal for six thousand
years.
Now, precisely at that period when this story
took place, one of the most important mines of
the Scotch basin had been exhausted by too
rapid working. In fact, it was in this region,
which lies between Edinburgh and Glasgow,
over an area of ten or twelve miles, that the
Aberfoyle mine extended, of which the engi-
neer, James Starr, had been so long the direc-
tor of the works.
For ten years these mines had been aban-
doned. No new deposits could be discovered,
though borings had been made to the depth of
fifteen hundred, and even two thousand feet ;
and when James Starr had retired, it was with
the certainty that the thinnest vein had been
completely exhausted.
It was then more than evident that, under
such conditions, the discovery of a new coal
basin in depths of the English sub-soil would
be a very important event. The communica-
tion made by Simon Ford, did it refer to a
fact of this nature ? That was the question
which James Starr put to himself—it was what
he tried to hope.
In a word, was this another corner in those
rich Black Indies where he was bidden to make
a new conquest ? He was willing to believe
it.
Tho second letter had for an instant upset
his ideas on this subject, but now he paid no
attention to it. Besides, the old woman's son
was there, waiting for him at the appointed
place. The anonymous letter was of no conse-
quence.
The moment the engineer stepped on the
platform, the young man approached him.
"You are Harry Ford?" said James Starr,
without any more ceremony.
"Yes, Mr. Starr."
"I would not know you, my boy. Ah, in
ten years you have become a man."
" But I would have known you," said the
young miner, who held his hat in his hand.
" You have not changed, sir. You are the one
who embraced me the day we bid good-bye at
the Dockart Pit. Such things are not easy for-
gotten."
"Put on your hat, then, Harry.    It rains in
torrents, and politeness need not go as far as .
taking a cold."
"Shall we seek shelter, Mr. Starr?" asked-
Harry Ford.
"No, Harry; the weather is settled. It will
rain all day, and I am in a hurry. Let us
go."
" As you say," said the young man.
" Tell me, Harry, is your father well?"
'" Very well, Mr. Starr."
"And your mother?"
" She is well, too."
" It was your  father who wrote to me ap-
pointing this interview at the Yarow Well ?"
"No; it was I."
" Then did Simon Ford send me a second
letter countermanding the first?" eagerly
asked the engineer.
" No, Mr. Starr,"  replied the young man.
"Humph!"
James Starr did not again refer to the anony-
mous letter.
" Can you tell me what old Simon wants me
for ?" he asked, presently,
"Mr Starr, my father wishes to tell it to
you himself."
" But you know it."
" I know it."
"Well,   then,   Harry,   I'll  ask   no   more.
Hurry, for I long to talk with Simon Ford.
By the way, where does he live ?"
" In the mine."
"What !    In the Dochart Pit ?"
" Yes, Mr. Starr,"  replied Harry Ford.