190 LIFE HISTOET OP COAL. 



to-day was living vegetable yesterday. Peat is baby-coal, so is 

 wood. Ask the chemist the constituents of either and then of 

 Coal. Brown Coal and lignite are the boy-coal. Bituminous or 

 common Coal is the young man in the prime of life. Anthracite 

 has passed the prime, h getting feeble with age. Graphite is 

 the old man. 



The Irish peasant or Tligliland cotter asks of peat warmth and 

 light and gets them, especially the first, enough for his simple 

 wants. He is asking help of a child. 



The Devonshire potter asks of the Bovey-Tracey lignite more 

 help in his artistic calling and gets it from the boy, whose age 

 has brought character and strength. We may ask of our ]^ew- 

 castle Coal anything that Coal can give and get it readily : — 

 Warmth in our homes, light in our streets, colours in our dress, 

 flavourings in our food, saccharine in our ailments. "We are 

 asking help of a man, and manly is the response. Do not ask 

 as much of Anthracite, he has gone some distance down hill, 

 but there is fire in the old man yet ; only give him time to start 

 and he will warm you thoroughly well, though he can no longer 

 laugh over his work. But as for the venerable Graphite, totter- 

 ing on verge of the grave, what may you ask of him ? "Warmth, 

 sweetness, colour, light ? Ah, no. He has none to give; and yet 

 not quite none. True ; no physical light, but in the blacklead 

 pencil he can give light to the mind, can catch the fleeting 

 forms for the artist; can make the thought of one the common 

 property of all ; can lead the child of man into intellectual light. 

 Coal, in his old, old age is not useless. Eemember when, this 

 cold night you reach home, and the sturdy young fellow from 

 between the bars of your grate smiles you a welcome, his smiles 

 are returned doubled by the old man from hob and fender. 



Is not this career of Coal strangely like life ? Once buried 

 the peat or wood must pass as we must, on from youth to age, 

 it cannot stop at any stage, but must become brown Coal, com- 

 mon Coal, steam Coal, Anthracite, Graphite. What if it must 

 be buried to live ? What if its life period must be measured by 

 a million of years ? Has all life time-limits, much less human 

 time-limits ? Vegetable life seeks and gets occasionally a much 



