i88 



THE WORLD'S LUMBER ROOM. 



There are innumerable seed-like bodies in the curious 

 " white coal," as it is called, though really it is brown, now 

 forming in Australia, which has all the character of true coal, 



though of inferior quality, 

 owing to the clay and sand 

 mixed with it. 



The combustible portion 

 consists entirely of spores, 

 as is the case also with the 

 " Tasmanite " of North Tas- 

 mania, which forms a stra- 

 tum several feet thick and 

 some miles in extent, and 



Fig. 37 . THIN SLICE OF SHALE has a granular appearance, 



owing to the multitude of 



showing the little globular spore 1,ff| A rrmnrl Krrlip>c i<- r-nn 

 cases scattered thresh it.) 



tains. 



The "black shales" of Ohio, again, which are more 

 ancient than the Coal Age, contain a considerable percent- 

 age of organic matter, made up entirely of spores and 

 cases. The coal of Borneo, on the other hand, is a much 

 younger deposit than any English coal, and of quite a 

 different origin, being formed from a mass of huge timber, 

 half of which still shows the grain of the wood. 



Old timber left in a mine in the Hartz which is some 

 400 years old has been found converted into brown coal, 

 or lignite, an earthy-looking, lustreless substance, of which 

 large deposits are found in many parts of the world, 

 especially in Hungary. Brown coal is far more ancient 

 than this Hartz-mine timber, but is modern compared with 



