250 Mr. Fairholme on the Nature of Coal, and on 



sections, which are of the very same character as those of the 

 mines of the North of England and the South of Scotland, 

 contain no one stratum differing in any material degree from 

 those through which tall and entire stems, of great diameter, 

 have in numerous instances been found to penetrate vertically; 

 and it is nearly certain, that if we could bring into one spot 

 the various stems found at various depths in different parts 

 of that coal-field, we should obtain a regular series of mea- 

 sures from the present surface of the ground down to the ut- 

 most depths of our coal mines. When we unite, therefore, 

 the evidence adduced by these stems, and that of the marine 

 strata in contact with the coal, we arrive at the natural con- 

 clusion, that instead of a long-continued and gradual process 

 in the bosom of fresh-water lakes, these invaluable and inter- 

 esting formations must have taken place in the waters of the 

 sea, and by a violent and rapid process, at some period of un- 

 usual destruction in the vegetable kingdom. 



Although no geological writer has yet, as far as I am aware, 

 brought these speaking witnesses to bear with their full power 

 upon the general theory of progressive formations, I find that 

 my own opinion respecting them cannot be looked upon as 

 singular ; for Mr. Bakewell, in his very able " Introduction 

 to Geology," makes the following remarks upon them, while 

 treating of the coal-measures. " In some places where sec- 

 tions have been made in the sandstone strata accompanying 

 coal, instances of fossil stems of large plants occur in a ver- 

 tical position. In Burntwood quarry, at Althouse, near Wake- 

 field in Yorkshire" (which is situated in the very same coal-field 

 as Halifax and Leeds, where the marine strata have been re- 

 marked by Mr. J. Phillips,) " several vertical stems of large 

 magnitude have been found. One stem which I measured in 

 the quarry, was 9 feet long and 10 inches in thickness : but, 

 what is very remarkable, this stem cut through three strata of 

 sandstone parted by regular strata seams. It had therefore," 

 observes this author, (not being aware, at the time he wrote, 

 of the intermixture of marine strata amongst these very forma- 

 tions,) — " it had therefore probably grown where it stood; for 

 it is difficult to believe that any vegetable stem could pierce 

 through three strata of sandstone, the lower of which, at least, 

 must have been partly consolidated. This fact proves that the 

 strata were deposited rapidly" p. 148. To the "difficulty" 

 here mentioned by Mr. Bakewell, I shall only add the still 

 greater one of believing that a living tree could be rapidly 

 covered up whei*e it grew, and its top imbedded in the very 

 same substance in which its roots had before found nourish- 



