314 &R. E. Ay. BtSrSEY on i^me strpposED 



volume of the Transactions of tMs Society, bear no evidence 

 "of the vegetables composing them having been drifted, 

 but, on the contrary, show that they were grown where 

 they are now found, the seam of coal being simply a mass 

 ■0f altered vegetable matter, lying upon a bed of tree roots, 

 and having stems of similar trees resting upon it. A 

 seam of coal like those in which the stones were found, bears 

 no more evidence of a current of water than an ordinary peat 

 bog does, and a rolled stoi^'e is Just as likely to be found iti 

 the middle of the one as in the other, if we admit that the 

 Vegetable matter now constituting coal, grew on the spot 

 where it is found. In the bog, over which the Liverpool 

 and Manchester Railway now passes, known by the name of 

 Chat Moss, are some pits containing water called ringing 

 holes. The people residing near the moss have a tradi- 

 tion, that if any one can find a stone on the bog which has 

 not been brought frorti a distance, and throws it into tliie 

 holes, it will ring like a church bell. But this interesting^ 

 experiment has not yet been tried, from the simple reason 

 that no one, up to this time, has yet been able to discover 

 'imcih a stone ! 



If, therefore, it is difficult td accoiftit for the occurrence 

 of the stones, previously described in this paper as found 

 in seams of coal, being conveyed to the places where they 

 M^e met with by the action of running water, we tffust 

 look to some other cause for their origin. 



The shape of the stones is not such as we should expect 

 to have been precipitated from solution in the water in which 

 the vegetaT:>le matter was immersed, like the flints in chalk. 

 Nor does their size allow of any probalbility of their being 

 secreted from the sap of plants, like the crystals of silica, 

 which are sometimes met with in the sugar-cane and some 

 other plants. The trees of the cartwniferous series have, 

 without doubt, been of a most extraordinary character when 

 compared with those at present existing ; but still we cannot 



