What is the "Coal Vein"?

For over a century and a half a controversy has raged in regard to that all important mineral, coal. On the one hand it has been maintained that its raw materials are the result of transport by water and that consequently coal is essentially of the nature of an aqueous organic sediment. On the other hand, the opinion has been held that coal is in the main the result of vegetable accumulations similar to those in actual circum-polar peat bogs consisting of the subaerial deposits, representing the successive generations of fallen peat plants. The first view of the origin of coal is usually called the allochthonous or transport theory. The second is known as the autochthonous or in-situ hypothesis. European geologists have in the main in recent years held to the latter view and their American colleagues have for the most part followed them in this opinion. It is important to emphasize however that the earlier and even the current views in regard to the origin of coal are for the most part arrived at in complete ignorance of its organization. Except in very recent years figures revealing the organization of coal are conspicuously absent in geological works, even in those which particularly deal with coal. It is apparently not without significance that the French who above all others gave early attention to the actual organization of coal, are supporters of the transport or aquatic hypothesis of the origin of coal. Although new methods and improved old methods now give us real insight into the organization of coal, there is yet unfortunately in general little observable rational improvement in geological theories regarding the formation of coal deposits.