POSTSCRIPT NOTE TO CHAPTER VIII.

While these sheets are preparing for the press, and while an opportunity is still in my power, I cannot permit it to pass without a few remarks upon an important paper on the Coal Series, lately read before the Yorkshire Philosophical Society, and which has now been published in the last number of the London and Edinburgh Philosophical Magazine (for Dec). This paper is upon the subject of "The Lower Coal Series of Yorkshire." It presents one of the many steps in the received systems of geology, which are slowly, but surely, advancing towards that very point for which I am now contending; and the few remarks I have to make upon it, will, I trust, go far to prove, that the hasty conclusions of the continental geology, on which our own schools have all been founded, have led to much contradiction and error, on this highly important branch of our subject.

It has, for some time, been one of the well known facts of geology, that, as trees and herbs could not, in any common circumstances, or by the common laws of nature, be deposited in a tranquil state in the bed of the sea, the extensive deposits we now discover in the form of repeated and alternating beds of coal, MUST have been deposited in fresh water; and, from this assumption, it has followed, that, wherever vegetable substances have been discovered, in the form of regular strata, even though occasionally accompanied with shells, such formations have received the geological name of LACUSTRINE deposits, as having resulted from the long-continued action of the laws of nature in inland lakes of fresh water.

This idea has, in a great measure, arisen, as I have elsewhere had occasion to show, from the deep-rooted error, that we are now inhabiting the same dry land which existed

M.

⚫ before the Mosaic deluge; and so misled have we in general been, by this delusion, that, wherever shells have been found in the neighbourhood of the coal strata, it has been assumed, as a matter of course, that they had belonged to such animals as then inhabited the fresh water. It must, also, be kept in mind, that, as there is often a separation of several hundred feet between the extreme limits of the beds of coal, and that, within that space, there are often many seams of that invaluable deposit, each assumed as having been the result of immense periods of time, as we may have naturally concluded, from the invisible (because visionary) progress of such deposits in the lakes of our own country, or in the rest of Europe; we are unavoidably led, by the adoption of such a theory, to discard history, and to adopt hypothesis; laying ourselves open, in such instances as I am now about to quote, to the vacillating effects, arising from distinct contradiction.

Mr John Phillips, the author of the interesting paper above alluded to, says: "The lowest portion of the Yorkshire coal strata, resting upon the mill-stone grit, produces comparatively but a small quantity of coal; and this, in general, not of a good quality. But no part of the coal-field is more curious in its geological relations, or more worthy of close study, by those who desire to penetrate into the history of the production of coal. We may define this lowest coal series very simply, by saying, that it is included between the millstone grit of Bromley, beneath, and the flag-stone of Elland, above, having a thickness of 120 or 150 yards, and inclosing, 'near the bottom, two thin seams af coal, one, or both of them, workable; and several other layers scattered through its mass, too thin to be worth working. The most regular and continous of all these coal seams, reaches, in a few places, to the thickness of 27 or 30 inches, but is generally only about 16. It is worked at various places, near Leeds, Bradford, Halifax, and Sheffield.

"It would have been impossible to have traced so thin a seam of coal, along so extensive a range, without some peculiar facilities--some points of reference more distinct than the varying quality of the coal, and the still more irregular fluctuations of the SANDSTONES and SHALES. This coal seam is covered by a roof, unlike that of any other coal bed, above the mountain limestone, in the British Islands; for, instead of containing only the remains of plants, or FRESH WATER SHELLS, it is filled with a considerable diversity of MARINE SHELLS,

belonging to the genera Pecten, and Ammonites; and, in one locality, near Halifax, specimens of Orthocera Ostrea, and scaly fish, have been obtained from certain nodular argillocalcareous concretions, called Baum Pots, lying over it.

The uniform occurrence of the Pectens, and Ammonites, through so wide a range, over one particular thin bed of coal, while they are not found in any other part of the coal strata, is one of the most curious phenomena yet observed concerning the distribution of organic remains, and will, undoubtedly, be found of the highest importance in all deductions relating to the circumstances which attended the PRODUCTION OF COAL."

Mr. Phillips then proceeds to give sections of the whole series, which, as in other coal fields, consists of alternating strata of sandy and argillaceous deposits, exactly similar, in their general character, to what I have already had occasion to exhibit; and containing, in several instances, the fossil remains of shells and plants.

He then continues: "In the upper coal series of Northumberland, Durham, Yorkshire, and Derbyshire, are several most extensive layers of bivalve shells, commonly called musclebands, and referred to the genus Unio, from which the FRESHWATER origin of those coal deposits has been inferred. It was, therefore, with extreme gratification that I found, in passing through Mr. Rawson's colliery, at Swan Banks, in the midst of the series above described, Two layers of these shells, one of them about the middle of the series, considerably above the PECTEN COAL; the other near the bottom, and considerably BELOW that coal."

Mr. Phillips then reasons upon the "PERIODICAL return of the marine element into its ancient receptacle, after THAT had been, for some time, occupied by FRESH WATER, and its few inhabitants," in much the same way by which the theories of Cuvier attempt to account for the stratifications in the Paris chalk basin.

After what has been already said on the more consistent and historical source of such deposits, it is only necessary, in this place, to add, that so unquestionable a proof of MARINE agency, in various parts of the coal basins of England, must shake to their foundations the theories of LACUSTRINE deposits; and, until it can be shown in our own lakes, or in those of the European continent, not only that such extensive ligneous deposits are now going on in their beds, but, also, that distinct STRATIFICATION can, under any circumstances,

take place, without the action of the tides and currents, we must continue to look upon such vague and contradictory theories, as nothing better than empty dreams, which leave the mind in a confused and bewildered state, without the reason being able to attain any sound or solid ground upon which securely to repose.*

* For further most important evidence on this subject, see the Supplementary Note to Chapter XI.

CHAPTER IX.

Organic Remains.—Evidences derived from them.-Erroneous Theories of Continuous Stratification. Diluvial Fossil Remains. Diluvial Origin of Coal.—Unfounded Theories on this Subject.-The Belgian Coal Fields.-Tropical Productions in Polar Regions.-Buffon's Theory,-High Importance of the Evidence of Fossils.—Natural and unavoidable mode of Transport.—Instances in Proof.-Buoyant nature of Bodies after Death.-Rate at which they might have been Transported. The thick-skinned Animals floated longest.

Having thus found a further corroboration of the truth of Scripture, in examining the appearances still existing on the general surface of the earth, we now come to the consideration of a most important part of the evidence, by which the record is still further supported, and in a still more remarkable degree: I mean, that of the fossil remains of animal and vegetable productions, so abundant in the secondary and diluvial formations. This most interesting part of our subject is much too extensive to be here entered upon at great length; but as many of the theories of geology have been formed on the evidence of fossils, viewed under a false light, it becomes highly necessary to take a general view of the subject; and this general view may, perhaps, prove sufficient for our present general purpose: for it must be evident, that a few facts, unequivocally proved, and supported both by reason and by history, are of more value in leading to a just conclusion, than a thousand theories, however plausibly and ably composed, where both reason and history are directly contradicted.