164 HiiJTORY or PITCOAL. 



Objection? to For mst-anc^l the most elevated parts of the Globe on 

 sis.* ^° which depositions of coal have been found, as the Cordillera 



in Pern, where Leblond met with them, beiniij more than 

 fonr thousand yards above the level of the sea, do not easily 

 bend to the explanation attempted, when it is alleged, that 

 they are forests or plants swept away and comminuted by the 

 waters. IJad the sea at that period no lower place, on which 

 to deposit its rand of broken plants? or was the Cordillera 

 itself very favourable to the production of vegetables? These 

 objections, which were made by Patrin, are not easy to re- 

 move. If we consider farther, that these immense tracts of 

 carbonaceous mud, which resemble torrents of melted resin 

 that a volcano his vomited out at once into valleys ten, fif- 

 tc€in, or twenty leagues long, and to the height of thirty, 

 forty, or sixty feet, exhibit not the slightest interruption, 

 not the least vestige of fishes, shells, bones, or stones, in 

 their beds ; no foreign body in their mass; to indicate those 

 convulsions, or that diso.der, which the imaginution cannot 

 easily separate from such great devastations of forests, moun- 

 tains, and continents : we must confess, that such produc- 

 tions are not explicable by some of those accidents, of which 

 nature at present gives us occasionally examples. 

 Alternation of Beside tljat tlie recurrence of fifty or sixty strata of coal, 



trmr strata ^j^jj ^ many of sandstone, do not allow the mind to con- 

 wuh vaitdstoue. . -' i • i V i- ^ -, 



ceive, how these two kinns or seumient can have been accu- 

 mulated exclusively ; as if previous to these periods the earth 

 could produce nothing, but what furnished the sea with trees 

 to pulverize, and silex to precipitate, alternately ; and nei- 

 ther beast, nor bir<f„ nor rock, nor flint, nor gravel, to dis- 

 turb their contiiiuity : we must likewise observe, that the 

 coal, as we now find it, has certain characters, that will pre- 

 sently be r sntioned, which perhaps place it at a greater dis- 

 tan<*e from vegetable than from animal substances. 

 Impressio;><; of What data then have we after all for ascribing to plant* 

 plants in the ^y^^ orii^ln of bitumens? a few traces of mosses or ferns, 

 surrounding i . i p , i • 



schist only scattered through the leaves of slate, that serve as their en- 



proire, that velope ? ' Such vestip'cs ])rove at most, that nature, durincf 

 sr.oit then ex- , •..>,, ^ ' ,• ri • a ^ ^ 



iatitil: the period oi these great operations, likewise made plants 



grow, and nourished animals in the seas, since we find shells 



in the strata that separate the coal in some countries ; but 



not 



