NATURAL HISTORY OF COAL. 
293 
NATURAL HISTORY OF COAL. 
ABSTRACT OF PAPER BY MR. F. J. WEBB. 
(Read March 18th, 1880.) 
After alluding to the importance of the enquiry, both from an 
economical and scientific point of view ; also to the strange combi- 
nation of paradoxical natural phenomena by which the apparently 
permanent and solid crust of the earth is the type of decomposition 
and change, while the ever-restless ocean is the true type of 
constancy and permanence, the subject was defined as " the con- 
sideration of those external conditions and influences by which it 
is surrounded, and by which it has been affected, together with 
the internal changes consequent upon these conditions and influ- 
ences, and by which it has been brought into the state in which it 
is now presented to us." 
Evidences, both external and internal, of the vegetable origin 
of coal were adduced \ and it was shown that in a progressive 
series, as peats, lignites, jets, carbonaceous shales, bituminous and 
anthracite coals, it is a product of all geological epochs, whenever 
there was a soil capable of producing and sustaining vegetation — 
the paucity of the supply from the older formations being noticed, 
and the occurrence of graphite in its place. Peat beds were 
described, and their geological relation to lignites. The mutual 
relationship was shown between bituminous coal and anthracite, the 
former passing into the latter by chemical change. The geological con- 
nection between the two was described — the bituminous coal being 
the product of undisturbed districts hermetically closed by super- 
incumbent, impervious clays ; while anthracite was the product 
of conditions favourable to the loss of the volatile gases, thus 
leaving an excess of carbon. Instances from Pennsylvania, the 
Forest of Dean, and the South Wales district were cited. The 
inflammable nature of cannel coal was illustrated by lighting a 
specimen at the table-lamp. 
