On Lines of Ancient Sea-Leveh, 121 



dications of the truth of the hypothesis, tliat in large tracts of 

 tlie world, the mineral was formed from vegetahles which 

 were washed into bays and estuaries, and often carried far into 

 the then existing seas. In other instances, flat and marshy 

 tracts rich in tropical vegetation, being subjected to gradual 

 depressions, may have been converted into lagoons and swamps 

 without any direct encroachment of the sea ; and in this pecu- 

 liar condition (subjected, however, in all cases, to entomb- 

 ment beneath those waters in which the overlying sandstone 

 and shales were accumulated), oscillations of the land may 

 have raised the beds at intervals, agrjn to be fitted for the 

 growth of marshy vegetables. 



In geology more than any other science, it must be our con- 

 stant endeavour to unravel phenomena which at one time 

 seemed inexplicable, and often opposed to each other ; but 

 with new discoveries the difficulties vanish, and the apparent- 

 ly conflicting testimonies are found to be in perfect harmony 

 with the order of changes, which the surface of the globe has 

 undergone. I repeat, therefore, my belief, that, whilst coal 

 may have been formed in many localities by subsidence of ve- 

 getables on the spot on which they grew, as first suggested by 

 Brongniart, MacCulloch, and others, its origin unquestionably 

 is also due, and over very large territories, to plants having been 

 washed into estuaries and seas, and there equally spread out 

 in successive layers with sand and mud. 



3. On Lines of Ancient Sea- Levels. — In a recent report to 

 the French Institute, our foreign Associate, M. Elie de 

 Beaumont, has given the substance of a most important me- 

 moir by M. Bravais, " On the Lines of Ancient Sea-level 

 in Finmark." Informing us that this work proceeds from 

 the pen of a naval officer attached to one of those nume- 

 rous scientific enterprises conducted at the public cost, which 

 do so much honour to the French government, M. de Beau- 

 mont embodies the labours of M. Bravais in a lucid analysis 

 of many of the facts relating to the same siibject, which have 

 been accumulated in Norway, Sweden, and the British Isles. 



Proofs of the elevation of the coasts of Norway have been 

 brought before geologists by Von Buch, Brongniart, and Kcil- 

 hau, and have recently been extended by M. Eugene Robert to 

 Spitzbergen. Mr Lycll has made the British public familiar 

 with the great oscillations which the land of Sweden has un- 



