THE COAL TO THE KINDLING WOOD 79 



vapours from my leaves. But how, pray, did you 

 know all this? Did the rock of which you are 

 made come from a forest ? for of course you 

 are a rock." 



" Everything in Nature's garden belongs to one 

 of three great Brotherhoods, the Animal, the 

 Vegetable, and the Mineral," said King Coal, "and 

 I have belonged to two of these, the Vegetable 

 and the Mineral. I once was a plant, a tree of a 

 forest thicker and greener than any that have ever 

 been seen by Heart of Man. I am now a piece of 

 coal, a mineral claiming kin with rocks, dug deep 

 from the earth. Between the beginning and the 

 end of my life are many steps and as many years 

 as the leaves in all the forests of the world. 



" There is in air, be it ever so pure, a vapour, 1 

 that plants need for their daily breath. Now 

 listen to how this gas was caught from the air in 

 bygone ages and turned into coal. 



" The Moon, I suppose, has told you often how 

 she and her master, the Earth, were once fiery 

 balls formed of the Earth's breath ? " 



"Yes," said the Kindling Wood, "the Moon 

 talks about little else but the past; but we trees 

 on the mountain never believed what she said." 



" You should believe the Moon. She tells the 

 1 Carbonic acid gas. 



