My
Favorite Mineral
I am not the sort of person who gives much thought to
favorites of this sort or that. My favorite
food, favorite music, or favorite movie is whatever I
happen to be in the mood for at the moment. My
favorite car is whatever appears to be the best
combination of price, efficiency, reliability,
handling, utility, and comfort for my current and
foreseeable needs. My favorite color depends on
what the color is for—brown is lovely for
chocolate, but not my first choice for asparagus.
If pressed to choose a favorite anything, my
decision is typically governed more by utilitarian
concerns than by aesthetics; I find I can muster no
more than a passing enthusiasm for trinkets. On
the other hand, diamonds, sapphires, and rubies have
their utilitarian applications. Galena made the
first radios possible. Mica is valuable as an
electrical insulator, and gold as a non-corroding
conductor. And without hematite and bauxite,
our modern industrial world could not exist. Yet
none of these stands out in my mind as the sine
qua non of minerals. To me, choosing a
favorite mineral is like choosing a favorite
vitamin—all are important, and each is
indispensable in some respect. Perhaps, then,
in my search for what I could identify as a clear
favorite, I can be forgiven for pushing the limits of
the conventional criteria for what qualifies as a
mineral.
I would not select a sparkling bauble that, for a few
moments, lures the eye to its seductive, translucent
depths. Nor would I choose a gleaming precious
metal which for millennia has incited base emotions
in the hearts of men. Rather, I would opt for
one that has been the source of comfort, and even of
fond memories. It would be the one that warmed
my boyhood home and my neighborhood school during the
frigid Februarys of the early 1950s. It would
be the one that once brought snorting locomotives and
majestic steamships to life and whisked them, and
their passengers and cargoes, to mysterious
destinations beyond my own familiar world. It
would be the one that fed the furnaces and powered
the machinery that made it possible for millions of
men and women to earn a livelihood, and to produce
material abundance and widespread prosperity with
seemingly magical ease and efficiency compared to any
previous age. It would be the one that even now
fires the boiler that makes the steam that turns the
generator that makes the electricity that runs the
computer that magically turns my thoughts into
intelligible squiggles on a screen or a sheet of
paper—none other than the "black
diamond."
Coal is a product of decomposed plants of bogs of the
Carboniferous Period, subsequently compressed and
hardened under layers of sediment for hundreds of
millions of years. It was probably first
employed as a fuel by the Chinese around 200 BCE. However,
it was not used as such in Europe until about the
13th century CE, when people who lived near
outcroppings of the funny black rock discovered that
it offered some advantages over wood as a fuel for
their hearths and smithies. Then in the 18th
century, coal's importance skyrocketed, when
development of the steam engine triggered the
Industrial Revolution, and ultimately provided the
power to obviate civilization's ages-old dependence
upon forced labor.
As minerals go, coal is arguably the humblest of the
lot. Pretty and clean it is not. Extracting
it from its subterranean hiding places is dangerous
work and can deface the land. The gritty clouds
resulting from its careless use are unsightly and
unhealthful, and it leaves mountains of ash as a
waste product. Yet despite its faults, what
other single mineral has provided so much comfort and
utility, and powered the unprecedented advance of
industry, not to mention the culture it supports? Indeed,
what other mineral has played so significant a role
in the liberation of mankind from slavery? No
glittering trinket can claim such an accomplishment.