In 1912, Frank Kennard, an electric plant worker, broke apart a large lump
of coal, and an iron cup fell from the center, leaving a cast of the pot
in the coal. The coal came from the Wilurton Coal Mines and is about 295
million years old, from the Mid-Pennsylvanian.
The evidence in support of the claim is so weak as to be scientifically
useless. The only evidence is a letter from 1948, thirty-six years
after the artifact was discovered. The letter says that the coal was
not found in situ but went through an unknown amount of processing
between the mine and the discovery of the iron cup after the coal was
delivered.
The cup appears to be cast iron, and cast iron technology began in the
eighteenth century. Its design is much like pots used to hold molten
metals and may have been used by a tinsmith, tinker, or person casting
bullets. Without the original pot to analyze, we cannot say exactly
how it was used.
The cup was likely dropped by a worker either inside a coal mine or in
a mine's surface workings. Mineralization is common in the coal and
surrounding debris of coal mines because rainwater reacts with the
newly exposed minerals and produces highly mineralized solutions.
Coal, sediments, and rocks are commonly cemented together in just a few
years. It could easily appear that a pot cemented in such a concretion
could appear superficially as if it were encased in the original coal.
Or small pieces of coal, including powder, could have been recompressed
around the cup by weight.
