IROQUOIS LONG HOUSE
IROQUOIS LONG HOUSE
Now let us imagine ourselves in one of these long houses, and let us try to see just how everything looked. Let us suppose that it is a little after sunset on a cold, stormy winter evening. We are glad to get under any covering in order to be somewhat protected from the biting wind and the stinging sleet. We have been welcomed by the Indians, have been made the guests of one of the families, and have been given something to eat. Supper over, we are able to look about us and to think whether we should consider ourselves cosy and comfortable if this were our own home.
The first thing that we observe is the fire, as it snaps and hisses. How warm it is, and how good it feels as we toast our cold hands and feet before it! But somehow we beginto wish that we were back beside our own stove. Then our eyes would not ache from the smoke. Why does it not go out at the top? It tries to, but the wind blows it back into the house so that, at times, it fills every corner, blinding our eyes, stifling our breath, and covering us with cinders from head to foot.
But as we sit, Turk fashion, squatted before the fire, we notice that we are being slowly covered up by something else than cinders. Although all the smoke does not go out at the opening, it seems as if almost all the snow did come in. At times it falls gently, slowly sifting into every fold in our clothing, into our eyes and ears, and gradually covering everything with its mantle of white. At other times a strong gust of wind sweeps down into the room, almost putting out the fire, and chilling us through and through in spite of the roaring blaze.
Now cold shivers begin to run down our backs. Besides, our limbs are growing tired from sitting so long in the unusual position. So we think that we will try a change, and we decide to lie down at full length with our faces to the fire. It is not easy to move into the new position, because our neighbors are crowded so close to us; but we finally succeed. In a very few minutes our feet begin to ache with the cold and our faces seem burning up with the heat. Shall we change again, and for a time let our heads get cool while we warm our feet? We cannot keep this up all night, but we would need to do so if we tried to be really comfortable.
In this way the Indians lived. They had no beds, no separate chambers, no kitchen, dining room, nor parlor. In this one room, if it can be called a room, all the families ate and slept. Around these fires they spent their time while in the house. Here they lay stretched out for sleep, withskins of animals under them as a slight protection from the damp ground. They did not spend much time in changing their clothes, for they practically wore the same night and day. They really needed only the roof to cover them and the fire to warm them. Though the fire warmed them unevenly, though the smoke was uncomfortable, though the cold, the snow, and the rain came in at the opening and all around the sides of the house, yet the Indians had a covering, they had a fire, and they were to a great degree contented and happy.
INDIAN METHOD OF BROILING.
INDIAN METHOD OF BROILING.
They were used to this life; they knew no other. Even after the white men came and the Indians had seen them in their houses, they had no desire to change their mode of living. "Ugh!" grunted an old redskin, as he studied the white man's ways;—"ugh! Injun make a little fire and set close to him; white man make a big fire and set way off."
The Indians needed food as well as covering. Their cooking must have been quite different from that which is done on a large modern kitchen range. They had no domestic animals except the dog; no cows nor pigs, no hens nor turkeys. They were compelled to hunt wild animals if they wanted meat. This meat they usually broiled; not on a broiler or a toaster, but upon slats or strips of wood placedabove the fire. Fish was cooked in the same way. Sometimes they boiled the meat. For this they usually had wooden dishes, which could not be put over the fire. These were filled with water, into which red hot stones were placed. When the water had been heated the food was put in it to be cooked.
We should now have some idea of the manner of life among the Indians. We have learned a little about their houses and their habits; we have seen how they made their fires and did their cooking; we have heard about their trails and their canoes, and the way in which they traveled from place to place. Thus lived the American Indians or red men three or four hundred years ago, and thus they would probably be living to-day if Columbus or some one else had not discovered America; if the English, the French, and the Spaniards had not come across the ocean; if farms and villages, towns and cities had not sprung up all over the country; if the white men had not taken much of the land over which the Indians had roamed for centuries; and if the Indians had not learned much from the white men which has greatly changed their conditions.
COLONIAL HOMES.
TheIndians, seated in their long community houses around their wood fires, ranging over their hunting ground seeking fresh meat, or stealthily creeping through the forest hoping to surprise some human enemy, at last found that they could no longer have this entire continent to themselves. More than four hundred years ago Europeans discovered the "New World" and began to explore it. More than three hundred years ago the Spaniards conquered the Indians in Mexico and made a settlement in Florida. Nearly three hundred years ago the French began to build homes in Canada, the Dutch in New York, and the English in Virginia and New England.
These white men, with their wives and children, crossed the Atlantic Ocean in the small vessels of those days, and built villages and cleared the land for farms. Their settlements were generally near the seacoast or the great rivers. The pioneers were thus nearer one another, and could the more readily hasten to each other's assistance in case of need.
The newcomers were not alike in appearance or habits. The French had different customs from the Spaniards. They not only spoke a different language, but they wore different kinds of clothes, tilled the soil in a different way, and lived in houses of different styles. The Dutch were quite unlike the English. Then, again, the life of the English in Virginia was different from life in New England: inthe former colony some of the settlers were wealthy, owned large plantations, and lived at long distances from one another; in the latter the colonists had more nearly equal possessions, occupied smaller farms, and lived close together.
Although the colonists thus had differing habits and customs, in many respects they were much alike. They had come to a country where everything was new. No mills nor factories were run by the streams; no shops made clothing or farming tools; no stores sold furniture or groceries. Everything that the colonists needed must be either brought across the ocean or roughly made by themselves. Of course only the rich could afford the expense of bringing heavy articles three thousand miles in sailing vessels; therefore a large part of what the colonists wore or ate or used for furniture or buildings was rude and of home manufacture. A description of the mode of life in one section of the country will give something of an idea of how the colonists lived in other sections.
PLYING THE AXE.
PLYING THE AXE.
Almost the first thing that was necessary for the colonist to do, as soon as he had determined where he was to live, was to build his house; he began at once to fell the trees. The axe was one of the most important of his possessions and he soon learned to use it with great skill. If he needed his house immediately he usually built it of rough, unsplit logs, filling the spaces with clay and covering the roof with thatch.
There is a story told of a log house which was built in the early part of one winter. The trees were cut when their trunks were frozen, and were laid in proper position to form the sides of the cabin. The stone chimney was built, and the house was ready. Day after day the great fireplace sent out its heat into the single room, until the sap in the logs was melted and little shoots with tender leaves began to form, which in time, at the ends of the logs nearest the fire, grew into long twigs. The logs had remained frozen on the outside, but had thawed within—a pleasant suggestion of the cheer and comfort found in a well warmed house.
If the newcomer had neighbors who could shelter his family for a time, he would split the logs and make a house somewhat tighter and better protected from cold and storm. After a time lumber mills were built and the logs were sawed into planks and boards. Many of the earliest New England houses contained but one room with an attic. The house was entered directly from out-of-doors, and was lighted by windows set with very small panes of glass or oiled paper. In one corner was the staircase, which sometimes was merely a ladder or perhaps a few cleats nailed on the framework. The furniture was meagre and most of it rudely made.
Can we see any improvement in this rough cottage over the Indian long house? It was more permanent; it was tighter and warmer; it was the abode of one family; it was a real home. In another respect the comfort of the log cabin was greatly increased: it had an enclosed fireplace and a chimney.
Some years ago fireplaces were seldom seen in our dwellings. In many of the old houses, in which the fireplaces were as old as the houses themselves, they were never used and were either boarded up or carefully screened from view. Butmore recently they have come into use again, and now seldom is a well arranged house built without one or more open fireplaces. We are then—most of us—acquainted with this small opening in the side or the corner of the room, in which small logs of wood burn upon the andirons or a bed of coals upon the grate. However, this modern grate or hearth is very unlike the huge fireplace of one and two centuries ago.
In the houses in which your great-grandmother and her mother and grandmother and great-grandmother lived the fireplace was not confined to a corner of the room, nor did it burn sticks fifteen or eighteen inches long. In the oldest house now standing in Rhode Island the fireplace was nearly ten feet long and about four feet in depth. Its back and sides were of stone, nearly two feet thick, and the chimney, thirteen feet by six, did not begin to narrow, as it went upward, until it reached the roof. This fireplace made an excellent play-house when the fire was out, and children found great delight in watching the stars from their seat in the chimney corner.
A COLONIAL FIREPLACE.
A COLONIAL FIREPLACE.
At first this open fireplace, with the fire burning in the centre, was the only means for cooking which our ancestors possessed. When they were able to build larger houses, with two, four, or eight rooms, even two stories high, they still had the great hearths; not one alone, but one in each of the principal rooms, and sometimes in the chambers. As time went on, stone or brick ovens were built by the side of the fireplaces, and frequently tin or "Dutch" ovens werebrought across the ocean and used in case of need. Let us look into one of these old houses on a Saturday, or "baking day," and notice some of the pleasures and inconveniences of cooking in olden time.
When Mother Brown rises at half past four in the morning she dresses quickly, for the coals, which had been carefully covered up, have given out little heat during the bitter, cold night. Before she can wash her hands and face she must start up the fire, for all the water in the house is frozen. She carefully rakes off the ashes from the coals which are still "alive," deftly lays on them a few shavings and pieces of bark, and, when they begin to burn brightly, piles upon them small and then larger sticks of wood. Now Father Brown and John, the hired man, who have come in from doing the chores, lift on to the fire one of the six foot logs, three or four feet in circumference, which have been previously brought in. Then Mother Brown calls the children. Ruth, the eldest, is already nearly dressed; Mehitable, just in her teens, is soon ready; while Polly, "the baby," nearly eight years old, finds it hard work to crawl out from between the sheets. The boys are even harder to rouse, for mother has to call Nathaniel, aged eleven, three times before he appears, and Joseph, two years younger, is slower still.
We will not stop to notice the breakfast, which is eaten, and the dishes washed, long before the sun rises. Now the outside door opens and in comes the old white horse, hauling a great backlog. John unhitches the chain and rolls the log upon the fire. This done, the horse goes out at the door opposite the one he entered. Father Brown brings in several armfuls of brush and heavier sticks, and throws them down near the fireplace.
As this is baking day, the oven must be made readyThe great brick oven, one side of which makes also one side of the fireplace, is filled with the brush and light wood, which is soon burning briskly. For an hour the fire is kept up, new wood being thrown in when necessary; then it is allowed to go out. Meanwhile Mother Brown and Ruth are busy—mixing and rolling, sifting rye and Indian meal, stirring up eggs, and adding milk and butter. By the time the oven is heated the cooks are ready to use it; and Mehitable rakes out the coals and ashes with a long stick, shaped like a shepherd's crook.
HAULING IN A BACKLOG.
HAULING IN A BACKLOG.
First the pans of "rye 'n' Injun" bread are laid in the oven, away back at the farther end. Then the "pandowdy" or great apple pudding and the "Injun" pudding are placed in front of the bread. While the bread and the puddings are baking, two tin ovens are brought in and prepared for use. These Dutch ovens are mere sheets of metal curvedaround into more than half a circle, with the opening placed toward the fire. A long iron rod runs through from side to side of the oven on which the meat for roast is to be spitted. Mother Brown removes one of the spits and thrusts it through a piece of beef, and in the same way spits a fat turkey on the other. Here is work for little Polly, upon whom rests the task of frequently turning the spit so that the meat is evenly roasted.
Later in the day, when the bread is baked, the oven is heated again and filled with pies—apple, mince, squash, and pumpkin. By the time these are baked the day is done. The coals on the hearth are covered with ashes and the tired cooks gladly retire for the night.
COOKING IN A COLONIAL KITCHEN.
COOKING IN A COLONIAL KITCHEN.
On other days meat is boiled in pots that are hung from the crane, a long, swinging, iron rod which reaches directly over the fire or may be turned out into the room. Upon the hearth potatoes are baked, corn is roasted, and other primitive forms of cooking are used. We have made a long step from the Indian's open fire and his simple cooking to the brick and tin ovens and the metal pots and kettles of our ancestors; but is it not a longer step to the coal, oil, and gas ranges of to-day?
CHIMNEYS.
Rememberingour experience in the Indian long house—the discomfort of the smoke and the opening in the roof—we shall understand another great improvement in the colonist's house. Even the log cabin had its chimney. The rising column of hot air from the fire, carrying the smoke with it, is confined between walls of stone or brick, and the room is fairly free from smoke. Why did not the Indian build a chimney? The temporary nature of his dwelling may have been a partial reason; but the red man's lack of civilization was doubtless the most effective cause. Even many so-called civilized nations built their houses without chimneys, and in fact this convenience is but a few centuries old.
The ancient Greeks are praised for their high civilization, and yet they were little better off than the savage Indians of the New World in the methods of heating their houses. Neither the Greeks nor the Romans had chimneys for their dwellings. It is true that Greece and Italy are warmer countries than England or most of the United States, and doors and windows could be left open with less discomfort than with us. Much of the smoke might thus escape, but enough doubtless remained to be unpleasant. The Greeks refrained from carving the rooms in which fires were built, for they realized that such ornamentation would soon be discolored by soot.
After Greece had been conquered by the Romans andRome had been overthrown by the Germanic tribes, much of the ancient civilization was lost and the "Dark Ages" followed. During this period the people throughout Europe made their fires in holes in the centre of the room, under an opening in the roof—just as we have seen that the Indians did. When the family went to bed at night they covered the hole in the roof with a board and also threw ashes over the coals, to prevent the wooden house from catching fire while they slept. It was the custom in every town, for many centuries, to ring the curfew or "cover-fire" bell each night, warning the inhabitants to cover their fires, put out their lights, and go to bed.
The first chimneys were probably built in Northern Italy about seven hundred years ago. The story is told that the Lord of Padua went to Rome in 1368 and found no chimney in his hotel. The Romans still held to the custom of kindling their fires in openings in the ground in the middle of the room. The Lord of Padua, longing for the comforts to which he was accustomed, sent to Padua for carpenters and masons, and had them build two chimneys like those at home. On the top of these he had his coat of arms affixed.
Gradually chimneys came into use throughout Europe, and when the colonists came to America they built them as a matter of course. As we have seen, the fireplaces were mammoth, and the chimneys therefore were also of great size; and for this reason, although the discomfort from the smoke was less than in the Indian long houses, it was not wholly avoided. For centuries, however, people had been used to the smoke, which occasionally poured back into the room instead of going up the chimney, and it did not occur to them, any more than to the red men, that it could be avoided. Notuntil a New England boy, who was then living in England, began to study into the cause of smoking chimneys was any relief obtained.
Benjamin Thompson was born in Woburn, Massachusetts, and had just come to manhood when the American Revolution broke out. Partly owing to certain family connections, he took the side of King George III., and went to England. After the war was over he went to Bavaria, entered the service of the king, and became his chamberlain. He rose through various positions until he became minister of war, and was made Count Rumford. He remained in Bavaria a few years, then lived for a time in England, and spent his last days in Paris.
Both in Bavaria and in England, Count Rumford devoted himself to science and the improvement of the conditions of his fellow men. It would be interesting to know the steps that he took and the good that he did, but we can here notice only some of his improvements in the methods of heating houses. As a scientist he was asked to "cure" smoking chimneys, and he succeeded so well that he once said he had "cured" more than five hundred in London alone.
He found out the simple fact that smoke will readily go up a chimney, unless there is something to stop it. All that was necessary was to discover the trouble and remove it. In nearly all of the five hundred chimneys nothing more was needed than to make the lower part of the chimney and the fireplace of the right form and size. One firm of builders was kept constantly employed carrying out his suggestions. Not only did he "cure" the chimneys, but he also prevented the waste of much heat. In accordance with his directions the square fireplace was changed so that the sides made a greater angle with the back and would therefore reflect moreheat into the room. He also made the space about the fire smaller, thus rendering the air hotter and therefore more ready to rush up the chimney, carrying more of the smoke with it. Count Rumford's ideas have been generally followed since his day, and now fireplaces seldom give out smoke into the room while they furnish more heat.
Count Rumford next took up the problem of improving stoves. Before we consider his improvements, however, we must note something about the first stoves. Another Massachusetts boy, born nearly half a century before Benjamin Thompson, also became a scientist, inventor, and discoverer. Benjamin Franklin was a traveler and in many other respects was like Count Rumford. But he chose to go with the colonies when they revolted from Great Britain, and he gave all his services to his fellow countrymen. A few years before the birth of Thompson, Franklin made an invention which was the first improved method of heating rooms. There had been so-called German stoves before his day, but they were not much used in this country.
A FRANKLIN STOVE.
A FRANKLIN STOVE.
It was in 1742 that Franklin, while in Philadelphia, devised the "Franklin stove" or "Pennsylvania fireplace." It consisted of iron sides, back and top, and was entirely open in front. A flue was arranged in the back which connected with the chimney to carry off the smoke. This movable fireplace was designed to burn wood, comparatively small logsbeing used. It had many advantages over the stone fireplace. It was set up nearer the middle of the room, thus sending heat out in all directions and warming the entire room. It saved much of the heat which had previously passed directly up the chimney and been lost. In the Pennsylvania fireplace this heat warmed the iron on the top of the stove and at the back, as well as the flue itself, all of which warmed the air in the room. Saving the heat saved wood also. Franklin himself said:
"My common room, I know, is made twice as warm as it used to be, with a quarter of the wood I formerly consumed there."
Franklin was offered a patent for his device by the governor of Pennsylvania, but he declined it. He declared that inasmuch as "we enjoy great advantages from the inventions of others, we should be glad of an opportunity to serve others by any invention of ours." Unfortunately, however, the people did not obtain from his generosity all the advantages that Franklin expected, for a London iron manufacturer made some slight changes in the pattern, not improving the stove in the least, and obtained a patent. From the sale of these stoves he made what was called "a small fortune."
Franklin's fireplace was but the first in a long series of inventions that have brought to us the stove of to-day. The great merit in his work was the idea of giving up the stone fireplace for one of iron. Changes in the form and shape of the stove have followed as a matter of course. No special credit is due to any one else, unless it be to Count Rumford, who, after curing the chimneys, made a cook stove with an oven. Then, for the first time since men knew how to cook over a fire, cooking could be carried on and the cook be protected from the direct heat of the fire.
Thus we come to the modern house with its modern stoves. No longer have we but one method of heating a dwelling. Sometimes a stove is set up in each of the rooms. Sometimes a larger stove is placed in the cellar, and this furnace heats air that is carried by large pipes or flues to the rooms, where the heated air comes out through registers. Sometimes a furnace in the cellar heats water, and hot water or steam is sent through small pipes, and passing through coils or radiators gives out heat. Besides, the cooking range is found in most kitchens.
All these systems of heating houses exist instead of the old-fashioned fireplace. Even when the modern grate is built, it is usual to find a register or steam coil on the opposite side of the room, because the open fire is apt to warm one side of the room only. It is pleasant, however, to look into a blazing fire, and we are sometimes almost willing to have the heat unevenly distributed if only we can watch the flames.
Some form of the stove, however, is our main dependence, and its various developments have been due, generally, to the desire of being freed from the discomforts of the old time methods. Perhaps also the growing scarcity of wood and the discovery of coal have had some effect upon the development of the stove; but that we must leave to another chapter.
FUEL.
"Whatdo you burn in the stoves in your houses?" was asked of a class of schoolchildren in a small Pennsylvania town. Hands went up in every direction; one said "kerosene oil"; two others shouted "gas"; a few replied "wood"; most of the class answered "coal." Then the teacher made further inquiries to learn why these different substances were used. The three who answered gas and oil agreed that coal was burned in other stoves in their houses, but that oil and gas stoves were used also because they were so convenient.
When the question was asked why coal was used, instantly the answer was given that coal was the best thing to burn; everybody burned it. Now this was not quite true, but Miss Turner, the teacher, instead of immediately correcting the error, turned to the pupils who had answered "wood," and inquired why they used wood. One said, "We haven't any coal"; another thought that it was because wood kindled more easily than coal; a third was sure that he was right—"We don't have to buy wood; coal costs money."
Now this boy had the correct idea. He lived in the country, though near the town. His father owned a large farm, a part of which was still forest land; he could cut his own wood, and therefore did not buy coal. After a few more questions the teacher discovered that all those who burned wood lived some little distance from town.
Then she turned to the class again and asked them if theycould now tell why the town families used coal instead of wood. One said, "We do not own forests." Another thought that it was because there were not trees enough. A third shook his hand wildly and shouted, "Coal is cheaper than wood!" A shy little girl ventured to suggest, "Because coal is better than wood; it lasts longer."
"You have each of you given a good reason," Miss Turner answered. "Coal is cheaper than wood here in the town because wood is growing more and more scarce. Many of your parents prefer coal because with it the fire needs less attention. But the coal dealers charge more to carry coal out into the country, and those who still own forests find it cheaper to burn their own wood. What sort of replies would I have received if I had asked the same questions of children in Pennsylvania Colony, or in any of the colonies, one hundred and fifty or two hundred years ago?"
The children had studied history somewhat. They knew the story of Columbus and his discoveries; they had read of the Pilgrims and the Puritans; they could have answered questions concerning John Smith and Henry Hudson; and they were especially familiar with William Penn and the Quakers, with George Washington and Braddock's defeat. But not one of them remembered that he had ever been told anything about the fires of the colonists.
There was a pause for a time; then one boy asked, "Didn't they burn just what we burn?" After another pause the shy little girl asked, "Didn't they have more forests then than now?" Before the teacher could reply, a boy said, "Perhaps they did not have any coal."
The children had thus thought it out for themselves, and they were right. Miss Turner then told them that it was many years after the time of Columbus or Hudson or Pennbefore coal mines were discovered in this country or coal used. She added that almost all the country, from Maine to Georgia and westward across the Alleghany Mountains, was covered with thick forests when the colonists crossed the Atlantic Ocean.
"What do you suppose our ancestors thought of these forests? Were they glad to see them, or did they wish that they covered less ground?" asked the teacher.
Most of the children answered that the forests must have been of great value to the colonists; they would not have to pay anything for fuel.
"Can you raise vegetables or grain in the woods?" was Miss Turner's next question.
Then the pupils began to see that the forests were hindrances as well as helps. The teacher told them that they gave the colonists more wood than was needed for fires and for lumber. She added that every acre of ground that they wished to plant with Indian corn or rye, with potatoes or squashes, must first be freed from the trees. Before the land could be plowed it must be cleared. If, then, the trees furnished more wood than could be used, it was natural for the farmer to burn the trees and stumps in the fields.
If there had been but few settlers and if they had been widely scattered over a large territory, no harm would have resulted. But the colonists came over by the thousands and had large families of children. By the time the country had been settled a hundred years, great gaps had been made in the forests. A few of the most foresighted of the colonists began to think about the future and to wonder what they would do for fuel if the wood should give out. In fact, trees began to be scarce in the neighborhood of the larger towns, and firewood as well as lumber became expensive.
"Suppose that all the forests in this country had been destroyed," the class was asked, "what would the people have done for fuel?"
"Used coal," replied a boy from a back seat.
"Yes," said Miss Turner, "if there were any coal, and if the colonists knew where to find it and how to use it. But what is this coal and where does it come from?"
"We owe all our knowledge of the origin of coal to the geologists, who have made a careful study of the surface of the earth," continued Miss Turner. "They tell us that there was a time when human beings did not live on the earth; when not even animals that need to breathe the air could exist. The atmosphere which surrounded the earth in those days was different from the air which we breathe. We need the oxygen that is in our air to sustain life; poor ventilation in our rooms or halls soon renders them uncomfortable and often causes our heads to ache. The reason for this is the presence in the air of too large a quantity of a gas called carbonic acid gas; an extra amount of it makes the air unfit to breathe, but a certain amount is necessary to sustain plant life.
"In the coal-forming or carboniferous age the atmosphere around the earth contained less oxygen than at present and great quantities of carbonic acid gas. For this reason, as I have said, animals did not exist, but plants—large shrubs, great ferns, and huge trees—lived and grew vigorously. If we have ever seen thick woods we need only imagine all the bushes and trees of the forest to be of enormous size in order to have some idea of the vegetable growth of the carboniferous age. The earth was preparing vast quantities of fuel to be ready, thousands of years later, for the millions of men that were to come.
"The growth of the forests was but one step in the preparation of coal. The second step was the submerging of the forests, covering them with water as if at the bottom of the sea. Then the streams brought gravel, sand, and mud into this ocean, and these were hardened into clay and sandstone by the pressure of the water, perhaps aided by the heat of the earth itself. The trees and ferns were bent down and pressed together and driven into the most compact condition possible.
"But again earthquakes came and the water disappeared. The layer of clay and sandstone was covered with soil which became dry enough to produce other forests, growing as rank as the first. These were again overwhelmed and covered first with water, then with rocks and soil, only to be lifted again for another growth. This process was repeated in some cases many times, as we can see with a little study."
Here Miss Turner stopped and said: "Next Saturday, if it is pleasant, we will have our annual spring picnic. We will go to a new place this time. We will try Howland's Grove, and then in the afternoon we will go down into the Jefferson mine and see what it is like."
We have not time to read about the picnic, nor of the interest that the class showed before the appointed Saturday, as well as all the forenoon of that day. Nor can we tell how the children went down the shaft of the mine, and how they were at first so quiet that hardly a word was said. The teacher showed them a layer of coal in the mine which was about three feet thick. Just above it was a rock which was different from the coal. This they were told was sandstone, the hardened sand which had been heaped upon the forests so many thousand years before. Then below the coal was another rock which was entirely unlike either the coal orthe sandstone. This was the seat-stone, the rock made out of the soil in which the forest had grown. Then below this they found three more layers, sandstone, coal, and seat-stone, and so on until the bottom of the mine was reached.
By this time the children were ready to ask questions.
"Oh, Miss Turner, what is this curious-looking thing in this part of the seat-stone?" asked one of the boys.
Miss Turner replied: "That is a fossil. It is part of a root of a tree, and has retained its shape and appearance all these thousands and thousands of years."
IN A COAL MINE.
IN A COAL MINE.
One of the miners who had been listening to the conversation said: "If you will step this way, madam, I can show you the whole of a tree-trunk in the coal."
The children eagerly crowded around as the miner showed the fossilized trunk of a tree still standing just as it grew, with its roots in the seat-stone and its top in the sandstone above the coal—for here the layer of coal was several feet in thickness.
A few minutes afterward, as the children were looking carefully at the sides of the mine to see if they could find more fossils, the shy little girl said quietly to the teacher: "I thinkthat I have found something, Miss Turner; won't you please see?"
She led the way to a trunk which showed the various stages in the process of change. One end was still almost like wood, the middle part was a very soft brown coal, while the other end was true coal.
"That helps us to understand more about the way in which the forests were changed to coal," said Miss Turner. "Now here is one more proof that coal was formed out of wood."
The teacher picked up a piece of coal and broke it with a hammer. Then she showed on the new surface some patches of a black substance. "Does not that look like charcoal?" she asked. "You know that charcoal is wood partly burned."
Thus the class learned how nature, ages and ages ago, began to prepare for the use of man a fuel which seems inexhaustible, is superior to wood in many respects, and is freely distributed in various portions of the world. This coal, which has taken the place of wood to a great extent in furnishing heat for our houses and stores, is found in large quantities in the United States, but was not mined or used here until the middle of the last century.
COAL.
Theuse of coal for heating purposes is so familiar to every one nowadays that probably few have ever thought about the time when it was unknown. Coal was as plentiful three thousand years ago as it is now. Layers and beds of the fuel existed just under the surface of the ground, and in many places cropped out through it. But the stones were merely "black rocks," and the idea that rocks would burn was too absurd to occur to any one. We may well wonder how it was first discovered that coal would burn.
Professor Greene suggests a possible explanation of this discovery. "There is in coal a hard, yellow, brassy mineral which flies in the fire and not infrequently startles the circle that has gathered around its cheerful blaze. When exposed to damp air this mineral undergoes chemical change, and during the process heat is given out, sometimes in sufficient quantities to set the coal alight. In this way it occasionally happens that seams of coal, when they lie near the surface, take fire of their own accord. One day a savage on a stroll was startled by finding the ground warm beneath his feet, and by seeing smoke and sulphurous vapors issuing from it. He laid it first to a supernatural cause; but curiosity getting the better of superstition, he scraped away the earth to find whence the reek came. Then he saw a bed of black stone, loose blocks of which he had already noticed lyingabout; parts of this stone were smouldering, and as soon as air was admitted burst into a blaze."
Whether coal was thus discovered or not, its first discovery must have occurred early in the history of the world. More than twenty centuries ago the Greek scholar, Theophrastus, wrote of the coals which were used by blacksmiths. There are indications that coal was mined in England before that country was conquered by the Romans. But not until the twelfth century was enough of the mineral mined in Newcastle, the great coal region of England, to warrant its being carried to London. As this coal was brought in vessels to the metropolis it received the name of "sea-coal," and it was thus called for several centuries.
How strange it is that opposition always arises to every new thing! People are always to be found who think that anything with which they are not familiar cannot be good. So it was in London. A cry began to arise that the use of coal was injurious to health. The coal was soft or bituminous, and burned with considerable flame and a dense smoke. This was before the common use of chimneys, and therefore the air in the rooms where it was burned became filled with an unpleasant odor. The belief was general that the use of coal rendered the air unfit to breathe, and Parliament was requested to put a stop to it. King Edward I. issued a proclamation forbidding any but blacksmiths to burn sea-coals, and directing that buildings from which coal-smoke was seen to come should be torn down. Though the law was repealed under a later king, coal was but little used for household purposes until the eighteenth century.
Most of the coal beds in the United States are situated at some distance from the ocean; therefore the first colonists, settling along the coast, were for a long time ignorant oftheir existence. The first white man to discover coal was Father Hennepin, who more than two hundred years ago, while exploring the Mississippi River, found it in Illinois. The first mines worked were the Richmond fields in Virginia, where coal was taken out a century and a half ago.
There is a tradition that a boy left home one morning to go fishing. After trying his luck for a time he found that his bait was gone. Accordingly he began to hunt for crawfish, and while searching stumbled over some black stones which attracted his attention. He had found the "outcrop" of a coal bed, and on his return he made known his discovery. A rich vein of coal was soon disclosed, and mining on a small scale was begun. We must remember that this story is only tradition and may not be true. We might wonder, perhaps, how the boy knew that the stones were any different from other rocks except in being black.
The way in which a twelve-foot vein was discovered in Pennsylvania is told inForest and Stream, and is probably quite true.
Elias Blank, living in Western Pennsylvania in the latter part of the last century, was called to his door one night and found there Lewis Whetzell, a famous Indian fighter, and Jonathan Gates, commonly called "Long Arms."
"Friend Lewis," said Mr. Blank, "where have thee and our friend been, and where bound?"
"I want to get out of here at once," said Whetzell, "and Long Arms is of the same opinion. This country's bewitched, and Long Arms and I are nearly scared to death."
"Friend Lewis, thee must not tell such stories to me," said old Elias. "Thee knows I am thy friend, and I have saved thee when a price was on thy head. I know thou art a man of courage, and friend Jonathan Gates, whom somecall 'Long Arms,' fears nothing on earth, and I'm fearful nothing anywhere else; and yet thou tellest me that he and thee are scared even almost to death. Shame on thee so to declare before thy friend, who loves ye both as he were thy father!"
"No, no, Elias," said Whetzell, dropping into the Quaker speech. "I tell thee no lie. We are scared. Yesterday afternoon we were in hiding about a mile from Dunkard Creek, and in the evening we built a fire under the bank very carefully; and we got some black rocks to prop up a little kettle, and put them beside the fire rather than in it; and the black rocks took fire and burned fiercely, with a filthy smoke and a bright light; and Long Arms said the devil would come if we stayed; and we grabbed the kettle and poured out the water, and made our way here, leaving the black rocks to burn."
Elias Blank was much interested. He did not tell Whetzell what the black rocks were, but he found out exactly where the men had made their fire, and the next day hunted up the camping-ground, found the "black rocks" in one of the river-hills, and opened a coal bank.
Thus, a little here and a little there, coal was discovered and used. At first it was mingled with wood, and then burned alone on the hearth. This coal was easily kindled, for it was bituminous or soft; it was not necessary to provide an extra draft, or to spend much more time in lighting it than had been customary with wood. Not many years passed, however, before a variety of coal was found that was hard and would not kindle easily. Accordingly it was thrown aside as useless. This was anthracite coal, and it is now generally preferred to the bituminous because of this very quality. Being hard, it does not burn away so rapidly;besides, it needs less attention and gives out much less smoke.
Just before the Revolution, Obadiah Gore, a blacksmith in the Wyoming valley in Pennsylvania, tried hard coal in his forge. At first, even with his great bellows, he was unable to make it burn. He continued the experiment, however, and after a time the lumps began to yield and flames darted from them. He thus discovered that pieces of anthracite coal could be kindled and burned if there was a "strong current of air," as he said, "sent through them by the bellows; without that I could do nothing with them."