January, 1869. 



Hardwicke's Science-Gossip. 



THE STOEY OF A PIECE OF COAL. 



Br J. E. TAYLOR, Hon. Sec. Norwich Geol. Soc, etc. 



AN any of my lis- 

 teners form any 

 idea of what a mil- 

 lion of years means ? 

 It is very difficult, 

 I grant, but I can- 

 not give any more 

 definite conception 

 of my own great 

 age than by saying 

 I am many millions of 

 years old. You must 

 therefore take it for granted that 

 all this immense lapse of time has 

 occurred since I was born. Be- 

 fore I attained my majority — that 

 is to say, before I became really 

 and positively coal — I had ex- 

 isted in manifold forms, more 

 numerous and varied than the metamorphoses of the 

 butterfly. You cannot hit upou a greater mistake 

 than to suppose I was originally made just 

 what you now see me — a jetty mass of mineral. 

 The doctrine of metempsychosis, said to be held by 

 the Hindoos, would apply almost literally to my 

 own biography. You may trace my career through 

 a hundred different stages, each more widely various 

 than the other. Nay, the process of elaboration 

 through which I have passed is so complex that I 

 may well be forgiven if I have not a clear recollec- 

 tion of it myself. 



I am English born and bred, notwithstanding the 

 tropical character of my antecedents. In some 

 measure, it may be thought that I hardly partake 

 of English characteristics as regards the climate 

 which affected my earlier career ; but I can assure 

 you I was never once removed from British ground 

 In the distant ages to which I have briefly referred, 

 my recollections go back to waving forests of tree- 

 fern and gigantic club-mosses, as well as to a thick 

 underwood of strange-looking plants. The name 

 now given to this formation by geologists is termed 

 No. 49, 



the Carboniferous, and you may form some idea of 

 the ages which have flowed away since then by the 

 fact that no fewer than nine subsequent distinct 

 formations and periods occurred. Tbese are known 

 as the Permian, Triassic, Liassic, Oolitic, Cretaceous 

 (or chalk), Eocene, Miocene, Pliocene, and Quater- 

 nary, to say nothing of the epoch comprehending 

 the human race. To make myself still more clearly 

 understood, it is necessary to state that the forma- 

 tions newer than that to which I belong attain a 

 vertical thickness of more than fifty thousand feet ! 

 All this mass was slowly formed by gradual depo- 

 sition along old sea-bottoms, whilst a more than 

 equivalent period of time was taken up in the up- 

 heaving and other processes which have elevated 

 these rocks into their present position ! 



The climate and geography of Great Britain were 

 very different from what theynow are when I was born. 

 You must imagine a soft balmy temperature, neither 

 too hot nor too cold, and lacking those extremes 

 which at present characterize the seasons. There 

 was no great necessity for extreme heat — rather it 

 was most important to the growth of a luxuriant 

 vegetation to be free from cold. There were few 

 ranges of hills or mountains, for these always cause 

 a refrigeration of the atmosphere by condensing the 

 clouds ; thus hanging the sky with a curtain which 

 shuts off a great deal of solar heat. True, right 

 across what is now central England, there stretched 

 a hilly barrier, which separated two coal-formations 

 going on contemporaneously. Scotland and Wales 

 were also then widely different from what these 

 countries are at present. Instead of the grand, 

 mountainous scenery they now possess, we had 

 long-extended saline mud-flats, thickly studded with 

 trees now extinct, and known to the geologist by 

 the names of Sigillarice, Lepidodendra, and Cata- 

 mites. In fact, all the district now considered as 

 " coal-yielding " was then similarly circumstanced g 

 The entire area had a geographical condition similar 

 to the marine swamps which now fringe the coast- 

 line of the Southern States of America. To these 



B 



