ash, has been found to behave in a similar manner. Under ordinary conditions, from 18 to 14 of the whole amount of sulphur in a coal is volatilized during combustion, the remaining 34 to 78 being found in the ash.
Table II.—Composition of the Ashes of Coals.
| Silica. | Alumina. | Ferric Oxide. | Lime. | Magnesia. | Potash. | Sulphuric Acid. | Phosphoric Acid. |
Total. | |
| True Coals. | |||||||||
| Dowlais, South Wales | 39·64 | 39·20 | 11·84 | 1·81 | 2·58 | .. | .. | 3·01 | 98·08 |
| Ebbw Vale, South Wales | 53·00 | 35·01 | .. | 3·94 | 2·20 | .. | 4·89 | 0·88 | 99·92 |
| Königsgrube, Silesia | 55·41 | 18·95 | 16·06 | 3·21 | 1·87 | 2·05 | 1·73 | 0·36 | 99·64 |
| Ohio | 44·60 | 41·10 | 7·40 | 3·61 | 1·28 | 1·82 | 0·59 | 0·29 | 100·69 |
| Lignites. | |||||||||
| Helmstadt, Saxony | 17·27 | 11·57 | 5·57 | 23·67 | 2·58 | 2·64 | 33·83 | .. | 97·13 |
| Edeléney, Hungary | 36·01 | 23·07 | 5·05 | 15·62 | 3·64 | 2·38 | 12·35 | .. | 98·12 |
The amount of water present in freshly raised coals varies very considerably. It is generally largest in lignites, which may sometimes contain 30% or even more, while in the coals of the coal measures it does not usually exceed from 5 to 10%. The loss of weight by exposure to the atmosphere from drying may be fromWater in coal. 12 to 34 of the total amount of water contained.
Table III.—Composition of Fuels (assuming Carbon＝100).
| Carbon. | Hydrogen. | Oxygen. | Disposable Hydrogen. | |
| Wood | 100 | 12·18 | 83·07 | 1·80 |
| Peat | 100 | 9·85 | 55·67 | 2·89 |
| Lignite | 100 | 8·37 | 42·42 | 3·07 |
| Thick Coal, S. Staffordshire | 100 | 6·12 | 21·23 | 3·47 |
| Hartley Steam Coal | 100 | 5·91 | 18·32 | 3·62 |
| South Wales Steam Coal | 100 | 4·75 | 5·28 | 4·09 |
| American Anthracite | 100 | 2·84 | 1·74 | 2·63 |
Coal is the result of the transformation of woody fibre and other vegetable matter by the elimination of oxygen and hydrogen in proportionally larger quantity than carbon, so that the percentage of the latter element is increased in the manner shown in Table III., given by J. Percy, the mineral matter being also changed by the removal Origin of Coal. of silica and alkalis and the substitution of substances analogous in composition to fire-clay. The causes and methods of these changes are, however, not very exactly defined. According to the elaborate researches of B. Renault (Bulletin de la Société de l’Industrie minérale, 3 ser. vol. xiii. p. 865), the agents of the transformation of cellulose into peaty substances are saprophytic fungi and bacterial ferments. As the former are only active in the air while the latter are anaerobic, the activity of either agent is conditioned by variation in the water level of the bog. The ultimate term of bacterial activity seems to be the production of ulmic acid, containing carbon 65·31 and hydrogen 3·85%, which is a powerful antiseptic. By the progressive elimination of oxygen and hydrogen, partly as water and partly as carbon dioxide and marsh gas, the ratios of carbon to oxygen and hydrogen in the rendered product increase in the following manner:—
| C : H | C : O | |
| Cellulose | 7·2 | 0·9 |
| Peat | 9·8 | 1·8 |
| Lignite, imperfect | 12·2 | 2·4 |
| Lignite, perfect | 12·6 | 3·6 |
The resulting product is a brown pasty or gelatinous substance which binds the more resisting parts of the plants into a compact mass. The same observer considers Boghead coal, kerosene shale and similar substances used for the production of mineral oils to be mainly alteration products of gelatinous fresh water algae, which by a nearly complete elimination of oxygen have been changed to substances approximating in composition to C2H3 and C3H5, where C : H = 7·98 and C : O + N = 46·3. In cannel coals the prevailing constituents are the spores of cryptogamic plants, algae being rare or in many cases absent. By making very thin sections and employing high magnification (1000–1200 diameters), Renault has been enabled to detect numerous forms of bacilli in the woody parts preserved in coal, one of which, Micrococcus carbo, bears a strong resemblance to the living Cladothrix found in trees buried in peat bogs. Clearer evidence of their occurrence has, however, been found in fragments of wood fossilized by silica or carbonate of lime which are sometimes met with in coal seams.
The subsequent change of peaty substance into coal is probably due to geological causes, i.e. chemical and physical processes similar to those that have converted ordinary sediments into rock masses. Such changes seem, however, to have been very rapidly accomplished, as pebbles of completely formed coal are commonly found in the sandstones and coarser sedimentary strata alternating with the coal seams in many coalfields.
The variation in the composition of coal seams in different parts of the same basin is a difficult matter to explain. It has been variously attributed to metamorphism, consequent upon igneous intrusion, earth movements and other kinds of geothermic action, greater or less loss of volatile constituents during the period of coaly transformation, conditioned by differences of permeability in the enclosing rocks, which is greater for sandstones than for argillaceous strata, and other causes; but none of these appears to be applicable over more than limited areas. According to L. Lemière, who has very fully reviewed the relation of composition to origin in coal seams (Bulletin de la Société de l’Industrie minérale, 4 ser. vol. iv. pp. 851 and 1299, vol. v. p. 273), differences in composition are mainly original, the denser and more anthracitic varieties representing plant substance which has been more completely macerated and deprived of its putrescible constituents before submergence, or of which the deposition had taken place in shallow water, more readily accessible to atmospheric oxidizing influences than the deeper areas where conditions favourable to the elaboration of compounds richer in hydrogen prevailed.
The conditions favourable to the production of coal seem therefore to have been—forest growth in swampy ground about the mouths of rivers, and rapid oscillation of level, the coal produced during subsidence being covered up by the sediment brought down by the river forming beds of sand or clay, which, on re-elevation, formed the soil for fresh growths, the alternation being occasionally broken by the deposit of purely marine beds. We might therefore expect to find coal wherever strata of estuarine origin are developed in great mass. This is actually the case; the Carboniferous System, Cretaceous System and Jurassic systems (qq.v.) contain coal-bearing strata though in unequal degrees,—the first being known as the Coal Measures proper, while the others are of small economic value in Great Britain, though more productive in workable coals on the continent of Europe. The Coal Measures which form part of the Palaeozoic or oldest of the three great geological divisions are mainly confined to the countries north of the equator. Mesozoic coals are more abundant in the southern hemisphere, while Tertiary coals seem to be tolerably uniformly distributed irrespective of latitude.
The nature of the Coal Measures will be best understood by
