“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.