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210
The Fairy-Land of Science
·
Arabella B. Buckley
162
And
now,
if
you
have
some
idea
of
the
plants
and
trees
of
the
coal,
it
is
time
to
ask
how
these
plants
became
buried
in
the
earth
and
made
pure
coal,
instead
of
decaying
away
and
leaving
behind
only
a
mixture
of
earth
and
leaves?
To
answer
this
question,
I
must
ask
you
to
take
another
journey
with
me
across
the
Atlantic
to
the
shores
of
America,
and
to
land
at
Norfolk
in
Virginia,
because
there
we
can
see
a
state
of
things
something
like
the
marshes
of
the
coal-forests.
All
round
about
Norfolk
the
land
is
low,
flat,
and
marshy,
and
to
the
south
of
the
town,
stretching
far
away
into
North
Carolina,
is
a
large,
desolate
swamp,
no
less
than
forty
miles
long
and
twenty-five
broad.
The
whole
place
is
one
enormous
quagmire,
overgrown
with
water-plants
and
trees.
The
soil
is
as
black
as
ink
from
the
old,
dead
leaves,
grasses,
roots,
and
stems
which
lie
in
it;
and
so
soft,
that
everything
would
sink
into
it,
if
it
were
not
for
the
matted
roots
of
the
mosses,
ferns,
and
other
plants
which
bind
it
together.
You
may
dig
down
for
ten
or
fifteen
feet,
and
find
nothing
but
peat
made
of
the
remains
of
plants
which
have
lived
and
died
there
in
succession
for
ages
and
ages,
while
the
black
trunks
of
the
fallen
trees
lie
here
and
there,
gradually
being
covered
up
by
the
dead
plants.
The
whole
place
is
so
still,
gloomy,
and
desolate,
that
it
goes
by
the
name
of
the
"Great
Dismal
Swamp,"
and
you
see
we
have
here
what
might
well
be
the
beginning
of
a
bed
of
coal;
for
we
know
that
peat
when
dried
becomes
firm
and
makes
an
excellent
fire,
and
that
if
it
were
pressed
till
it
was
hard
and
solid
it
would
not
be
unlike
coal.
If,
then,
we
can
explain
how
this
peaty
bed
has
been
kept
pure
from
earth,
we
shall
be
able
to
understand
how
a
coal-bed
may
have
been
formed,
even
though
the
plants
and
trees
which
grow
in
this
swamp
are
different
from
those
which
grew
in
the
coal-forests.
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