Faye McWhite, age 14, of Butte, Mont., for her question:
WHO WERE THE FIRST TO USE COAL?
We don't know the exact date of the first use of coal, but we know it was used in ancient times by many people. The Chinese probably used coal about 1,000 years before the Christian Era. There are also a number of references to the use of coal in the Bible.
Early Greeks used coal for several hundred years before the birth of Christ but hundreds of years passed before coal had any great and lasting influence on the course of civilization.
During the Middle Ages in England, the common thought was that coal was a curse. People thought that it filled the air with dangerous poisons that injured people's health. In 1306, King Edward I of England issued a proclamation that declared the use of coal punishable by death. Then, for hundreds of years, few people used coal.
The Industrial Revolution which dates from the 1700s in Great Britain, was largely dependent on coal as the chief source of power to drive steam engines.
Coal was first discovered by white men in North America in 1679. Father Louis Hennepin, a member of a French exploring group, found the black mineral along the Illinois River at a point about 80 miles southwest of the present city of Chicago.
Near what is now Richmond, Va., a colony of Huguenots found a few pieces of coal near their colony in 1700. But it wasn't until 50 years later that a boy hunting crawfish discovered a bed of coal in the region. Before the end of 1750, mining operations were started. This was the the first commercial mining of soft coal on the North American continent.
In 1759, mining started in western Pennsylvania and anthracite, now considered one of the finest of fuels, was discovered in eastern Pennsylvania in 1791. For a time, this coal was believed to be useless. In some places the sale of anthracite was declared a fraud which was punishable by law.
With the growing industrialization, especially after 1850, coal was increasingly used in the United States.
During the second half of the 1800s, the growth of railroads gave the coal industry one of its best customers.
Coal helped stimulate the iron and steel industries since it provided the needed power. In the 1890s, the development of steam driven electric generators sparked the growth of the electric power industry, the modern coal industry's largest customers.
The word "coal" as used in the English language, comes from the Anglo Saxon "col," which originally referred to charcoal. The spelling "cole" was used until about 100 years ago when the present spelling of the word, "coal," was adopted.
Some coal was formed 400 million years ago. But most high rank coal, such as that found in Pennsylvania, was formed more than 250 million years ago, during a time that geologists called the Carboniferous period.