About Coal
“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!”
“A true Star has but five Points”
Flag Day
REVOLUTIONARY FLAGS USED BEFORE THE ADOPTION OF
THE STARS AND STRIPES
“I CAN’T seem to make this flag-staff do what I want it to,” said the boy named Billy.
“Let me help you,” said Somebody; “I’ll hold it while you clamp it to the window-sill.”
“Just when did we begin to have Flag Day, please?”
“Flag Raising Day is one of the youngest of our National anniversaries, but is fast becoming one of the most popular,” said Somebody. “The custom came about at the request of the Sons of the Revolution that a day be set aside for honoring of the Flag, and was first observed on the 14th of June, 1894, on the 117th anniversary of the adoption of the Flag by Congress, when the Governor of New York ordered it to be flown on all public buildings in the State.”
“Please tell me just how the flag became,” said Billy.
“Previous to the year 1777,” said Somebody, “each state had its own flag. But at a convention of the Revolutionary statesmen, which was held in Philadelphia in that year, a committee was appointed to consider the report upon the subject of a flag which should be the standard of all the colonies; and on June 14th, 1777, Congress passed a resolution that the flag of our country should bear thirteen stripes, one red and the other white, and that the union should be thirteen white stars on a field of blue. General George Washington, who was a member of the committee, with Robert Morris and Colonel Ross, made a rough sketch of the flag and took it to a Mrs. Betsy Ross who was famed for her skillful needle work, asking her if she could make such a flag.
“I can,” said Mrs. Ross, “but a true star has but five points, where yours has six,” and picking up her scissors she deftly cut a five-pointed star. It was at once seen that the star of five points was much more beautiful and the committee commissioned Mrs. Ross to make a sample flag.
The first flag made was raised in Philadelphia, but was soon copied and flown over the entire land.
“Where it still flies,” said the boy named Billy, saluting, “and will always continue to fly. But when was it changed? The field is now full of stars, though it has only thirteen stripes.”
“When Kentucky and Vermont were admitted to the Union,” said Somebody, “the flag was changed to fifteen stars and fifteen stripes; but in 1818 Congress voted to restore the thirteen stripes and to add a new star for every state, on the first Fourth of July after the state had been admitted to the Union.
“There is a story to the effect that at a Fourth of July dinner given some years ago in Shanghai, the English Consul, in toasting the British flag, said: ‘Here’s to the Union Jack, the flag of flags, the flag that has floated on every continent and every sea for a thousand years and upon which the sun never sets.’”
“Did he get away with that?” asked Billy.
“Not very well,” said Somebody. “Eli Perkins, the celebrated American humorist, who was present, rose to his feet and said, “Here’s to the Stars and Stripes, emblem of the New Republic. When the setting sun lights up its stars in Alaska, the rising sun salutes it on the rockbound coast of Maine. It is the flag of liberty, never lowered to any foe, and the only flag that has ever whipped the flag upon which the sun never sets.”
“I guess that held him for a while!” said the boy named Billy, saluting.