248 Mr. Fairholmcoft the Nature of Coal, and on 



the strata, placed in a vertical position, and intersecting, in 

 many instances, a great variety of beds. It is scarcely neces- 

 sary to enumerate the instances in which this remarkable posi- 

 tion of the fossils has been observed. The facts connected 

 with these vertical stems, projecting through beds of coal, of 

 shale, and of sandstone, and assuming in a greater or less de- 

 gree, the character of each bed with which they come in con- 

 tact, must now be well known to all geologists; and it only 

 appears surprising that the discovery of even one such fossil 

 tree, in any well-defined coal district, should not have had the 

 effect of utterly exploding from our systems the theory of a 

 slow and gradual deposition, whether in salt or in fresh water. 

 Such trees have sometimes been found with roots spreading, 

 as it were, in their natural position, and they have in such 

 cases been generally described as in situ, or as having ori- 

 ginally grown where their stems are now found*. It seems 

 altogether unnecessary to refute so extraordinary and unna- 

 tural an idea. For where, in the present course of things, are 

 we to look for anything analogous on which to ground an 

 argument ? Where, in our existing lakes, are we to hope to 

 find even the slightest indication of growing beds of coal with 

 intervening strata of sand or clay? And even if such are to be 

 found, where shall we find a tree of 50 or 60 feet in length, 

 in a growing state, and enduring patiently the tardy process of 

 slow lacustrine deposition, by which its lofty top shall be as well 

 preserved for the inspection of future geologists, as the roots 

 which are nourished in the loose sands which cover them? 



Such considerations are, perhaps, sufficient to show the er- 

 roneous nature of our theories, with respect both to the nature 

 and the relative age of the coal strata. We must of necessity 

 either admit the rapidity of formation of such deposits as ex- 

 hibit entire vertical trees intersecting from 50 to 70 feet of 

 variously stratified rock, or we must produce, in the existing 

 system of the world, some instances in the vegetable kingdom 

 of thousands of years 1 duration, and so tenacious of life as to 

 continue growing, and yet not materially increasing, while 

 they become thus gradually covered up inthe bottoms of fresh- 

 water lakes. 



But there is another most important consideration which 

 belongs to this subject, and which militates with equal strength 

 against the theory entertained by some, that deposits of coal 

 have at all times been in progress on the earth, and must even 



* For such a description, see the Annals of Philosophy for November 

 1820, where an account is given of a tree with roots discovered in the 

 coal sandstone near Glasgow. — [See also a paper by Mr. Witham, in the 

 Phil. Mag. and Annals, N.S., vol. vii. p. 23. — Edit.] 



