212 Dr. Mac Culloch on the Lignites. 



that of Cologne, so well known and so often described. The 

 principal deposite here, is thirty feet in thickness ; and this 

 locality is remarkable for its peculiar pulverulent lignite, so 

 valuable in painting. 



To the lignite above the chalk, are supposed to belong those 

 immense deposites found in the middle of the Alps, and those of 

 Styria, which are wrought for burning. These occur chiefly in 

 the sands of the plastic clay, as it is thought ; but it appears 

 nevertheless certain, that some examples of this nature must be 

 referred to a purely fresh water or lacustral origin. Those 

 which abound in certain parts of Germany, as near Cassel and 

 Meissner, are conceived to appertain to a formation of this 

 nature, though lying in contact with the magnesian lime-stone ; a 

 situation not incompatible with such a geological position. 

 Those also which are found in the basin separating the Alps and 

 the Jura, at Vernier, Paudex, Vevay, near the lake of Zurich, at 

 Oeningen, and elsewhere, including all the steinkohles of Switzer- 

 land, appear to be the deposites of a fresh-water lake in ancient 

 times, as might be inferred from other circumstances attending 

 this great locality. Those of Sheppey, the Isle of Wight, Sussex, 

 and other analogous places in England, must, on the contrary, be 

 referred to the marine deposite, the plastic clay. Thus the 

 lignites above the chalk would admit of being divided into marine 

 and fresh-water deposites ; but while we must still leave the whole 

 of the tertiary strata undivided, it is unnecessary, as it is unsafe, 

 to attempt a more minute division here. 



"With respect to a theory of the fresh-water lignites, there can 

 be no further difficulty than in the other cases ; and if in any 

 instances of such deposites above the chalk, or indeed in any other 

 position, the magnitude may appear revolting to the theory of 

 transportation, it must be remembered that they are easily ex- 

 plained by the fall of forests on sea- shores, and that such tracks of 

 submerged wood as that of Lincolnshire, are precisely what, at a 

 more distant period, would have furnished the very beds of lig- 

 nite in question. How far peat, both terrestrial and maritime, 

 may have aided, is almost too obvious to hint ; nor is it necessary 



