The Formation of Coat. 
6 77 
1879.] 
V. THE FORMATION OF COAL. 
S HE paper read by M. Fremy, the eminent Director of 
the Museum at the Parisian Academie des Sciences, 
under the title “ Chemical Researches respecting the 
Formation of Coal,” is of such great interest that we have 
no hesitation in making it known to our readers. 
It is known that coal is produced by the decomposition of 
vegetable matter, which for many ages covered the surface 
of the earth. The learned chemist has made a series of 
analyses, of which he gives an account in his paper, and 
which have enabled him to establish the laws of this decom- 
position, and to explain the transformation of the tissues of 
the vegetable matter into coal by the loss of their organic 
form. 
With reference to peat, the hypothesis has been put forth 
generally up to the present time of a possible relation 
between their formation and that of coal. M. Fremy has 
been led by the same investigations to the conclusion that 
the peaty fermentation is, so to speak, the first stage reached 
by the ligneous tissues before arriving at their complete 
transformation into coal. 
After making these short preliminary remarks, we hasten 
to introduce M. Fremy in his own words. 
The paper, says M. FrCmy, which I read to-day on the 
formation of coal is the latter part of the general investiga- 
tions on the vegetable tissues which I have carried on since 
1850, that is to say, since my nomination to the professorship 
of the museum. 
It is at the Jardin des Plantes that I have found every- 
thing needful for pursuing my enquiries into certain matters 
highly interesting and important to chemistry and vegetable 
physiology. 
The questions which I proposed to myself were as 
follows : — 
What is the nature of the elements of which the organs 
and the tissues of vegetables are formed ? Is it possible to 
discover these elements without altering them, and to deter- 
mine with some exactness their proportions ? Does this 
chemical analysis of the tissues permit of following the 
development in the vegetable organisation, and of establish- 
ing a comparison between them such as science demands ? 
Is it possible for chemistry to make known the exa (ft com- 
