JF Ptak Science Books

I am happy to introduce a sub-category in the diagrams-employing -tree-structures category:  the Tree of Coal. It is an unusual diversion in the general quantitative display of data:

This was found in the German Life magazine of its day, the Illustrirte Zeitung, in 1921, and is a very strong pictorial display of the evolution of coal products. It is strongly related to the “Verkaufsvereinigung fuer Teererzeugnisse” (of Essen) image which used this idea in 1922, also publishing in the  Illusrtriete Zeitung.. The great tree spring from a bed of coal (“kohle”) exhibiting the “stammbaum der nebenerzeugnisse” (roughly the “pedigree of our product”), with the trunk being gas, branching out into tar, coke and cyan and so on. It is interesting to see that in the Coal Tree above that the roots are firmly entwined over and through a coal pile, while below the roots are in soil.

Even though it’s the lifeblood of the continuing industrial revolution, and even though we’re hundreds of years into a deep need with the products, the use of the tree just seems antithetical to it all on all levels of recognition.