“Down in a coal mine underneath the ground,
Where a ray of sunshine never can be found,
Digging dusky diamonds all the year around
Down in a coal mine underneath the ground,”
sang the boy named Billy as he put more coal on Somebody’s fire.
“Where _did_ you dig up that old coal-miner’s chantey, Billy
Boy?” asked Somebody.
“Bob White’s great-grandfather sings it sometimes in the funniest
quivery old voice ever--” said the boy named Billy. “He used to
be a foreman in a coal-mine in Pennsylvania when he was young, so
Bob says. What’s a Chantey, please? I thought it was just a funny
old song.”
“A Chantey is a song that workmen sing as they work, and make up
for themselves,” said Somebody. “Sometimes they have a stanza to
start with and then everybody adds a little and after a time it
takes on the character of the men who sing it. The men who work
in the woods, and the river men, especially those of Canada, have
wonderful Chanteys.”
“It’s very interesting,” said Billy, “why do they call coal
‘dusky diamonds’ in their chantey?”
“Because both coal and diamonds are carbon,” said Somebody, “you
knew that, Billy.”
“Guess I did,” said Billy, giving the fire an extra poke, “only
I didn’t stop to think. But I don’t believe I know just exactly
what makes them after all.”
“In the case of coal--pressure,” said Somebody. “This old world
of ours has been a long time in the making; at some time in its
history dense forests, which had been centuries in growing, were
crushed and buried by some disturbance of the earth and under
the mountains of earth and rocks were pressed into a rock-like
substance composed of carbon, oxygen, nitrogen, and hydrogen,
with sulphur and silica added. The carbon and gases burn up, and
what is left is what you take away in the form of ashes before
you go to school mornings, like the good boy that you are.”
“Is coal everywhere under us then?” asked the boy named Billy.
“Probably not,” answered Somebody. “It is usually found in
streaks, very likely because there was much open country where no
forests grew. Then, too, the moving glacier or flood or whatever
it was that destroyed the forests may have taken them a long way
from home before it buried them.”
“The coal we burn in the furnace is not like the sort that you
burn in your grate,” said the boy named Billy.
“The Anthracite, or hard coal which is used in furnaces,” said
Somebody, “is the kind that has been under most pressure and is
found at a greater depth than the Bituminous or soft coal which
is found nearer the surface.”
“Who was the first to find out that coal would burn?” asked Billy.
“Nobody knows,” said Somebody. “Perhaps some little mother whose
babies were cold and chilly found some black rocks and used them
for a fireplace to hold the little sticks which she was burning
to cook breakfast over, and found that the stones also burned.”
“I’ll bet that’s right,” said Billy. “I can just see the picture.
What kind of mother would she have been?”
“Anglo-Saxon,” said Somebody, “as they were the first to use it
as a fuel. They have been known to have used coal since 842 A. D.”
“As useful as coal itself is, its derivatives are more so,” went
on Somebody. “From coal tar is made so many articles of daily use
that it would be impossible to tell you about them all.”
“Old King Coal,” sang Billy. “Thanks, Somebody--I’m off for a
swift skate on the ice this morning!”
[Illustration: “A true Star has but five Points”]