The Elements of economic geology

Bibliographic data

Monograph

Identifikator:: 1773832379

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-172798

Document type:: Monograph

Author:: Gregory, John W. http://d-nb.info/gnd/11683014X

Title:: The Elements of economic geology

Place of publication:: London

Publisher:: Methuen

Year of publication:: 1928

Scope:: XIV, 312 S.; graph. Darst.

Digitisation:: 2021

Collection:: Economics Books

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Chapter

Document type:: Monograph

Structure type:: Chapter

Title:: Part V. Mineral fuels

Collection:: Economics Books

260 ECONOMIC GEOLOGY 7000 to 16,000 B.T.U. Good coal is five times superior to wood when allowance is made for the difference in bulk. The large storage space required for wood renders it incon- venient in cities, while a steamship on a long voyage would require more firewood than it could carry. Dermvition or. Coar—Coal is not easily defined! The three meanings in Johnson's Dictionary (1755), * the common fossil fewel,” “the cinder of burnt wood, charcoal,” and “fire; anything inflamed or ignited,” illustrate the former wide meaning of the term. The coal of the Bible is charcoal, and though that term dates back to the fourteenth century, it was only restricted to carbonized wood in the seventeenth century. Mineral coal was called sea-coal, which as its use became general was abridged to coal. Coal is a mixed mineral of very complex constitution ; it is dark brown to black in colour; it consists of a mixture of carbon and hydrocarbons with earthy constituents or ash, of which the amount is not too high for use in fireplaces or furnaces; and it is insoluble in such solvents as turpentine, alcohol, chloroform, or benzine. Coal is usually defined as of vegetable origin, but the fuel value of some cannel coal is due to animal matter. Oil shales are an earthy variety of cannel coal, but are excluded from coal in ordinary usage just as sandstone containing coal fragments is classified as coaly sandstone. Cannel coal is different from other coals both in origin and use. It has been formed in lagoons and swamps by the accumulation of an organic mud which may be either animal or vegetable in origin. This mud has been called sapropel, and the cannel coals are conveniently separ- ated as the sapropelic coals. Humic CoaLs The humic coals are derived from plant tissues which consist of cellulose, C4H,,O;, with 50 per cent. of carbon. They form a series characterized by increase in the carbon percentage, the reduction of the oxygen and hydrogen—as shown in the following table, calculated free of ash and mois- ! An excellent definition—* a solid fuel which occurs in seams, being the fossilized remains of organic matter” was given by F. D. Power. Coalfields of Australia, 1912, p. 402.

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