SALTER — -A CHRISTMAS LECTURE ON COAL. 



13 



at Dungannon, and in Clare and Kilkenny ; but the beds are so poor 

 in coal, and tbe produce altogether is so very small. It would 

 almost seem as if Providence had made amends for the scanty sup- 

 ply, and indicated the direction Ireland's industry should take, by 

 covering her fertile limestone plains with the exhaustless peat. Peat 

 is the Irishman's friend, and like the seal to the Greenlander, sup- 

 plies him with light, warmth, and even building-materials ; and now 

 they are manufacturing peat, it will be meat and drink to the Irish 

 peasant. 



"We have seen hoiv coal is found, and ivliere in Britain ; how it lies 

 there in beds or basins, not in veins or bunches ; how it occurs 

 mainly in the great Paleeozoic formation, above or about the geologic 

 place of the Mountain Limestone. And this is true for nearly all 

 of Europe, and of the mighty coal-fields of America. But it is not 

 the case over the whole world. Even in our own country there are 

 coal-beds in our oolite rocks, above even the New Red Sandstone ; 

 and in Yorkshire these rocks are neither few nor barren. 



This " oolitic" coal is the common coal of Virginia, in the United 

 States. A similar coal forms our staple supply in the East Indies. 

 We have oolitic coal at Natal and along a great part of southern 

 Africa. Australia is supplied with oolitic coal. Wherever English- 

 men found a colony, there is coal ; but it is not all of the same age. 

 Borneo is not yet ours, but there is coal. 



And there is tertiary coal. Our own little coal-field at Bovey 

 Tracey, Devonshire, is a miniature representative of much larger 

 brown-coal fields in Germany. The Miocene coal of the Rhine is 

 little better than a fossil peat ; — sticks, and leaves, and fruits, and here 

 and there an insect, a fish, a frog, are found in this freshwater coal. 

 If a fox got drowned in these old swamps, he, too, turns up as coal 

 for German firesides. Nothing comes amiss. Some varieties of this 

 tertiary coal are little else than pond confervas matted close together, 

 and layers of such like peaty matter form the dysoile, or " paper coal." 



So there is every transition in mineral composition from the peat 

 bog to the coal-bed ; and it is not anticipating our next lecture to 

 say that all coal, of whatever kind or value, is vegetable produce. 

 It would be out of place to doubt that our youngest readers know 

 this fact ; what we propose to do next time is to give a short account 

 of the methods of extracting these precious black diamonds ; to show 

 what kinds of vegetables produced our great coal-fields ; and to dis- 

 cuss briefly the valuable services we receive from " Coal." 



(To be continued.) 



