210 Dr. Mac Culloch on the Lignites. 



with strong resemblances, there is this radical distinction between 

 them and true coal, that whereas the latter series contains no 

 marine remains, these occur in all the lignites. Thus we are also 

 led to a different theory respecting them, and to that theory which 

 was once supposed to explain the great coal series itself. It is, that 

 they have been chiefly produced by transportation ; consisting of 

 fragments of terrestrial vegetables deposited under the sea, or in 

 lakes ; though possibly also formed sometimes from marine plants. 

 There is evidence of the former, independently of marine remains 

 found with them, in the scattered nature of many, and in the 

 numerous fragments of vegetables dispersed everywhere among 

 the strata ; the casually greater accumulations of these, in certain 

 places, forming the more extended deposites. 



There appears no difficulty in this theory, as it is a common 

 case of transportation ; and if certain beds or accumulations have 

 been converted into true coal, while others preserve the characters 

 of wood more completely, the solution will be found in an antiquity, 

 and in circumstances, analogous to those under which the coal series 

 itself was produced and consolidated. 



It will be convenient, now, to give the geography of the chief 

 lignites that are known, on account of the difficulty of determining 

 to what position in the strata most of them belong. Where that 

 appears really ascertained, these places will thus form points of 

 reference, to stand in lieu of the descriptions which are yet 

 wanting. 



They occur abundantly along the western declivity of the Jura, 

 in the south-west of Germany, abounding chiefly in Westphalia, 

 and being wrought in the Buckeburg ; as they are also in Coburg, 

 and to the east of Spittelstein. Near Quedlinberg and Pirna, the 

 same substances are scattered through the sandstones. It appears 

 that at Coburg, they belong to the Quadersandstein, as seems also 

 the case in other parts of the tract above-mentioned ; so that we 

 may perhaps be compelled to adopt a division prior to that of the 

 lias and oolithe. In Istria, they occur in the oolithe abundantly, 

 passing into coal at Carpona, and in the Island Veglia, where 

 they are wrought for the use of the Trieste steam-boat. It is to 



