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? And yet
there is, I trust, no doubt whatsoever that the bread has been once
green wheat, and that the green wheat has been transformed into
bread--making due allowance, of course, for the bone-dust, or gypsum,
or alum with which the worthy baker may have found it profitable to
adulterate his bread, in order to improve the digestion of Her
Majesty's subjects.
But you may say, "Yes, but we can see the wheat growing, flowering,
ripening, reaped, ground, kneaded, baked.
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