Town Geology by Charles Kingsley — Read

My dear town-dwelling readers, let me tell you now something of a geological product well known, happily, to all dwellers in towns, and of late years, thanks to railroad extension, to most dwellers in country districts: I mean coal.

Coal, as of course you know, is commonly said to be composed of vegetable matter, of the leaves and stems of ancient plants and trees -- a startling statement, and one which I do not wish you to take entirely on trust. I shall therefore spend a few pages in showing you how this fact -- for fact it is -- was discovered. It is a very good example of reasoning from the known to the unknown. You will have a right to say at first starting, "Coal is utterly different in look from leaves and stems. The only property which they seem to have in common is that they can both burn. " True. But difference of mere look may be only owing to a transformation, or series of transformations. There are plenty in nature quite as great, and greater. What can be more different in look, for instance, than a green field of wheat and a basket of loaves at the baker's?