Back Aa

Nature's Miracles: Familiar Talks on Science, Vol. 1.

Close

<h2>CHAPTER IV.</h2> <h3>SLATE AND SHALE.</h3> Slate is one of the great commercial products of the world. As far back as the year 1877 the output of slate was not less than 1,000,000 tons per annum. The chief use to which slate is put is for covering buildings, and for this purpose it is better than any other known material. It is also used in the construction of billiard tables and for writing-slates; these latter uses are very insignificant as compared to its use in architecture. Slate, like building-stone and limestone, is quarried from the earth's crust and is found in the strata close above the Metamorphic rocks, near the beginning of what is called the Primary, or Paleozoic period. As compared with the coal formations it is very, very old. There are different substances called slate that are not slate in the scientific use of that word. In general all stone formations are called slates that split up into thin layers. But the true slate is a special material which is formed by special processes of nature. The difference between slate and shale, for instance, is not one of ingredients, but of the process by which the ingredients are put together. All of the sedimentary rocks are formed by a deposit of sediment from the water on the bottom of the ocean. At one period the floods have brought down a certain kind of material in greater profusion than at others, and this is deposited in thin layers, and as it hardens there will be seams in it and the stratifications will be differently colored, the color depending upon the deposit at any particular time. A bed of shale, like a bed of coal, has lines of cleavage in it, and if it is examined under a microscope it will be found that the sedimentary particles, like the twigs and leaves in the coal veins, lie with their longest dimensions in line with the plane of cleavage. Shale in color looks like slate, and an analysis of the material of which it is formed shows that shale and slate are both made from the same. There is, however, a structural difference between the two which is very peculiar and very interesting. The slate is ordinarily a denser material and the lines of cleavage are often at right angles with those that we find in ordinary shale. A slab of shale will be of a uniform color on any one line of cleavage. The color may change at the next line, and generally does, to a slight extent. It is easy to see, then, if we could change the lines of cleavage in the shale, so as to run at right angles with their present lines, the face of a slab would show bands of different colors or shadings, such as we often see in slate. If you take a piece of clay that has been thoroughly mixed, and subject it to a very great pressure, and then examine the piece that has been submitted to pressure under a microscope and compare it with a piece of the clay after it has been thoroughly mixed, but has not been submitted to pressure, you will find that the two are very different in structure. The pressed clay will show that the particles of which it is made up have all turned, so that their longest dimensions are in a line at right angles with the direction of pressure. Here is an interesting fact that we must remember. And it is in this that we find the reason for the structural difference between shale and slate. The lines of cleavage in shale are not formed necessarily by pressure, but because in the disposition of the material of which it was formed the particles naturally laid themselves down so that their longest dimensions were on a horizontal line. Ages after, when other rock and other formations had been laid down on top of the bed of deposited mud, the upheavals of the earth have so changed the lines of pressure upon this material and the pressure is so great that a rearrangement of the particles of which the slate is made up has taken place, so that their longest dimensions now are in a direction that crosses the stratifications as originally laid down. The effect of this is twofold. First, the material is compressed into a denser, closer form, and then, the lines of cleavage are changed, or to express it in more common language, the grain has been changed. So that when it splits up it runs crosswise of the original layers as the water deposited them, and this produces the different shadings so often seen in different slate. Shale splits in line with its layers; slate splits across that line. Let us go back a moment to our experiment with the lump of clay. If we examined the mixture before submitted to pressure we should find that the oblong particles of which it was made up would stand in all directions, hit or miss, and if we should dry this lump of clay it would have no special lines of cleavage. But the moment we have submitted it to a certain amount of pressure we find that lines of cleavage have been established, and that the particles have been rearranged so that their longest dimensions are all in one direction, which coincides with the cleavage lines. If we should now take this same piece of clay and subject it to a pressure at right angles to that of the first experiment we should find that the lines of cleavage had also changed and that the particles had all been rearranged. Apply the principle to the formation of slate, and we can understand how it happens that what we call the grain runs crosswise of the deposits that were made at different times. It is not a chemical, but purely a mechanical difference. Or, to express it differently—the difference is a structural one produced by mechanical causes. The origin of cleavage in slate has been the subject of much speculation and investigation, but like many other problems it was solved through the invention and application of the microscope. Thin layers of slate have been made, the same as with limestone and chalk, so thin that the light would readily pass through it and that an examination of the particles could be readily made, showing their arrangement under varied conditions. Science is indebted to the microscope for the solution of very many problems that for ages before had puzzled philosophers. <hr style="width: 65%;" /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

1 of 2

2 of 2