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National Geographic : 1944 May
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Coal: Prodigious Worker for Man Norfolk and Western Railway From Mine to Tipple to Cars, Coal Flows without a Pause In an Appalachian field, cars four abreast receive loads according to various sizes. Through the mountain side head house, a belt conveys coal from the mine. West geologists have counted 30 such seams. Within a few minutes after I entered a coal mine for the first time, my guide pointed out the imprint of a fern on the coal above us. Frequently fossil remains of plants, trees, fish, or reptiles are found embedded in the coal or in the roof slate above. Among these are different kinds of ferns, some that once grew to a height of 60 feet, and tree trunks one to five feet in diameter (page 577). Coal is a rock, because it is part of the solid substance that forms the crust of the earth: but, strictly speaking, it is not a mineral. It is vegetable matter that has suffered geologic and chemical change. It may be assumed that all coal began as peat in prehistoric swamps. Peat is still found in the Florida Everglades, the Dismal Swamp of Virginia, and the Irish bogs. Peat is used for fuel in Ireland and the Netherlands; in this country for lawn improve ment. It is not a variety of coal but merely an incipient stage in its formation. There are a number of varieties or "ranks" of coal-anthracite, semianthracite, low-vola tile bituminous (often called semibituminous or smokeless), high-volatile bituminous, sub bituminous, lignite, etc.-each representing a stage in millions of years of prehistoric chemis try and geology. Wondrously, Nature has created coal for every human need. In a sense, coal is merely the result of a long, gradual process by which oxygen and hydrogen (the constitutents of water) have been expelled, leaving mostly carbon. Even "soft," or bituminous coal, averages 60 to 80 percent carbon, and "hard," or anthracite, has 90 percent or more. The most essential constituent of coal-in fact, of all fuel-energy materials-is carbon. It is in all living substances, animal and vege table. Carbon is a singularly versatile element. The carbon atoms form chains by uniting with each other; carbon is the base of organic chem istry, of thousands of chemical compounds. 571
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