Soils, their formation, properties, composition, and relations to climate and plant growth in the humid and arid regions - Eugene W. Hilgard

	Cellulose.	Oak Wood.			Humin and Humic Acid.
		Fresh.	Decayed.
		Fresh.	Light Brown.	Dark Brown.
Carbon	44.44	50.60	53.60	56.20	49.4	to	59.7
Hydrogen	6.17	6.00	5.20	4.90	2.5	“	4.5
Oxygen	49.38	43.40	41.20	38.90	35.8	“	47.3
Nitrogen		43.40	41.20	38.90	.3	“	18.7

	Peat.[43]			Coals.
	Brown Surface. (Ulmin.)	Black.		Lignite Brown Coal. (Bovey).	Scotch Splint Bituminous.	Penn’a Anthracite.
	Brown Surface. (Ulmin.)	40 in.	80 in.	Lignite Brown Coal. (Bovey).	Scotch Splint Bituminous.	Penn’a Anthracite.
Carbon	57.80	62.00	64.10	69.50	84.20	94.80
Hydrogen	5.40	5.20	5.00	5.90	5.80	2.60
Oxygen	36.00	30.70	26.80	24.00	8.80	2.60
Nitrogen	.80	2.10	4.10	.60	1.20	2.60

The steady increase of carbon and nitrogen, together with a corresponding decrease of oxygen, are well illustrated in the analyses, especially in the strictly comparable series of peat samples from various depths. In this case there is also a steady decrease of hydrogen, and an increase of ash from 2.72% in the surface layer, to 9.16 at 80 inches depth. This increase is due in the main, of course, to the progressive volatilization of the organic matter in the forms of carbonic dioxid and marsh gas (methan, CH₄).

In considering this table it should not be forgotten that while normal humus stands very close to peat, and the latter when compressed in certain stages would be undistinguishable from lignite or brown coal; yet both peat and lignite are known to be formed under conditions permitting much less access of air or oxygen than occurs in the formation of normal black soil-humus. Hence even black peat cannot at once stand in place of soil-humus when removed from its watery bed, but requires considerable time and aeration (oxidation), and in most cases neutralization with lime or marl, before it can serve the purposes of humus in the soil.

Lignite and the progressively more carbonaceous coals are and have been formed under the conjoined action of submergence and pressure, sometimes also aided by heat; and thus they cannot perform the function of soil-humus, any more than the fire-clays or shales underlying them can resume their original soil-functions without prolonged weathering.

Amounts of Humus and Coal Formed from Vegetable Matter.—Only very general and indefinite estimates can be given of the amount of humus or coal formed from a given quantity of vegetable matter, since these must vary according to the conditions under which the transformation occurs. The greater or less access of air and of moisture, the temperature and pressure under which the process occurs, will modify very materially the quantitative as well as the qualitative result. In the hot arid regions the fallen leaves may wholly disappear by oxidation on the surface of the ground, while under humid conditions they are mostly incorporated with the surface soil. If we assume that in the humification of plant debris (estimating their average nitrogen content at 1%), no nitrogen is lost, it would seem that in the humid region one part of normal soil-humus might be formed from 5 to 6 parts of (dry) plant debris; while in the extreme regime of the arid regions, from 18 to 20 parts of the same would be required. But as most probably some nitrogen also is lost in the process of humification, a considerably larger proportion of original substance may be actually required.

Fig. 14.—Section of lignitized log showing contraction
into solid lignite on drying.

As to coal, it is usually assumed that it requires about 8 parts of vegetable matter for one of bituminous coal. Much higher estimates are made by some, and an observation made by the writer at the Port Hudson bluff, Mississippi, in 1869, would seem to justify such estimates. The [above figure], from a sketch made at the time, shows the proportions to which a pine log about eight inches in diameter had shrunk in drying into a small sheet of lignitized wood; the original trunk, projecting from a bed of sand some forty feet below the surface, being so porous and spongy that when wet it flattened somewhat by its own weight; it was connected with the little sheet of lignite by a spirally twisted, tapering stipe.

Here evidently the proportion of lignite formed was a very minute one, doubtless because of the long leaching to which the trunk had been subjected. It thus seems impossible, as in the case of humus, to assign any definite proportion as between woody matter and coal formed from it.