The Coal Mines; Containing a Description of the Various Systems of Working and Ventilating Mines, Together with a Sketch of the Principal Coal Regions

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1876 edition. Excerpt: ... THE COAL MINES. . CHAPTER I. ORIGIN OF COAL. Coal Derived From Vegetable Matter -- Vegetation Grew On7 Swampy Plains -- Subsidence Of The Land And Influx Of The, Ocean--Detritus Of The Water Forming Shales And Sandstones-- Escape Of The Gases--New Sub-aereal Surface And Growth Of Vegetation -- Second Downward Movement Of Land -- Climatic Condition Of Coal Formation Period--Delta Of The Mississippi-- . Sunken Country Of New Madrid--Earthquake Shock At Mouth Of Kiver Indus--Parkfield Colliery--Trees From Which Coal Is Derived--Fossil Fish--Thickness Of Coal Strata--Time Required To Form Coal Beds -- Prof. Newberry On Formation Of Coal-- Chemical Changes From Peat To Graphite--Different Varieties Of Coal--Dry Burning Coal--Caking Coal--Cannel Coal--AnThracite Coal--Semi-bituminous Coal--Lignite Or Brown Coal --Structure Of Coal Fields--Dykes And Dislocations Of StrataTroubles In The Coal Mine--Splitting Of Coal Seams. The rocks of the earth, known as the " Coal Measures," consist of a series of beds of sandstones, shales, limestones, fireclays, iron-ores, and coals, in manifold alternations. The beds of coal are now universally held by men of science to have been formed from the decomposition of vegetable matter--the leaves and stems of ancient plants and trees which grew, and died, and became decomposed and mineralized on the spot where the coal is now found; and the associated beds of rocky strata to have been derived from the sediments of the water which flowed over the carbonaceous accumulations during the subsidence of the land. Several other theories have been advanced, accounting for the origin of coal--as that it is of animal origin, or that it was formed from petroleum. Bischoff, and other eminent geologists, held that the...