THE MENTOR 1918.05.01, No. 154, The Story of Coal LEARN ONE THING EVERY DAY MAY 1 1918 SERIAL NO. 154 THE MENTOR THE STORY OF COAL By CHARLES FITZHUGH TALMAN Editorial Writer for the Scientific American DEPARTMENT OF VOLUME 6 SCIENCE NUMBER 6 TWENTY CENTS A COPY THE MINER By BERTON BRALEY Grimy, and caked with dust of coal he stands, Grasping his pick within his mighty hands; The arbiter of destiny and fate, Greater by far than king or potentate. Shops may not run except at his behest, At forge and blast his strength is manifest. The rolls that rumble and the shears that scream And all the million miracles of steam Depend on him for fuel that will turn The wheels that urge them and the belts that churn. Guns that will shatter fortresses of steel, Ships that will plow the waves on steady keel Bearing munitions for an army’s need Must wait the miner’s orders and take heed That he who toils within the coal mine’s murk Gives them the coal with which they do their work. Behind the men who battle in the trench There stand the workmen at the lathe and bench, But back of them and master of them all The miner stands and holds the world in thrall. Not soon again shall any man forget How much the world is in the miner’s debt, For we shall read upon fame’s honor roll “He won the war--his labor gave us coal!” Reprinted by courtesy of Publishers of “Coal Age.” [Illustration: COURTESY U. S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY FOSSIL FERN FROM COAL MINE] _THE STORY OF COAL_ _The Origin of Coal_ ONE While the vegetable origin of coal is beyond question, two rival views are current among geologists to account for the deposit of ancient plant material in the form of coal-beds, such as we now find in the earth. One school of geologists holds that the coal plants grew in great lagoons and swamps, like the mangrove swamps of today, and that the modern coal-beds mark the locations of these swamps. From time to time these areas subsided and were flooded with water to such a depth that the plants were killed. Eventually the decayed vegetation of the former swamps was covered with a layer of mud or sand. Later a slow upheaval of the ground brought these regions again to the surface; a new swamp formed, only to be submerged again at a later period; and the same process was repeated several times in the course of hundreds of thousands of years.