874
Opinion of the Court
Congress enacted the statute). We are persuaded that the common conception of coal at the time Congress passed the 1909 and 1910 Acts was the solid rock substance that was the country's primary energy resource.
A
At the time the Acts were passed, most dictionaries defined coal as the solid fuel resource. For example, one contemporary dictionary defined coal as a "solid and more or less distinctly stratified mineral, varying in color from dark-brown to black, brittle, combustible, and used as fuel, not fusible without decomposition and very insoluble." 2 Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia 1067 (1906). See also American Dictionary of the English Language 244 (N. Webster 1889) (defining "coal" as a "black, or brownish black, solid, combustible substance, consisting, like charcoal, mainly of carbon, but more compact"); 2 New English Dictionary on Historical Principles 549 (J. Murray ed. 1893) (defining coal as a "mineral, solid, hard, opaque, black, or blackish, found in seams or strata in the earth, and largely used as fuel"); Webster's New International Dictionary of the English Language 424 (W. Harris & F. Allen eds. 1916) (defining coal as a "black, or brownish black, solid, combustible mineral substance").
In contrast, dictionaries of the day defined CBM gas— then called "marsh gas," "methane," or "fire-damp"—as a distinct substance, a gas "contained in" or "given off by" coal, but not as coal itself. See, e. g., 3 Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia 2229 (1906) (defining "fire-damp" as "[t]he gas contained in coal, often given off by it in large quantities, and exploding, on ignition, when mixed with atmospheric air"; noting that "[f]ire-damp is a source of great danger to life in coal-mines").
As these dictionary definitions suggest, the common understanding of coal in 1909 and 1910 would not have encompassed CBM gas, both because it is a gas rather than a solid
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