4 STEVENSON— FORMATION OF COAL BEDS. [April 21. 



America. That additional material may be brought in from time 

 to time bv transport is conceded, but the quantity thus added is com- 

 paratively unimportant. Equally the formation of a coal deposit by 

 transport is conceded but not the formation of a typical coal bed. 



The Synopses of Opinions and Results. 



Woodward^ explained all stratified rocks as deposits from the 

 original menstruum. During the time of the deluge, the solid 

 materials were wholly " dissolved." They were mingled with un- 

 consolidated materials such as sand, earth as well as animal and 

 vegetable matters and all were assumed and sustained by the water 

 in a confused mass. In time, these materials subsided " as near as 

 possibly could be expected in so great confusion, according to the 

 laws of gravity," those having the least gravity settling last of all 

 and covering the rest. '' The matter, subsiding thus, formed the 

 strata of stone, of marble, of cole, of earth and the rest." That 

 Woodward thought coal to be of vegetable origin cannot be deter- 

 mined with certainty : his remark that vegetable materials, being 

 of less specific gravit\- than mineral matter, would be precipitated 

 last of all and so form the outermost " stratum of the globe " 

 seems to suggest a contrary belief. 



Whiston- took issue with Woodward and asserted that the 

 hypothesis presented by that author " includes things so strange, 

 wonderful and surprizing that nothing but the utmost Necessity, 

 and the perfect unaccountableness of the Phenomena without it, 

 ought to be esteemed sufificient to justify the Belief and Introduction 

 of it." At the time of the Xoachic deluge the earth passed through 

 the " Chaotick Atmosphere of a Comet " and thus acquired a great 

 amount of new material which mingled with the loose materials of 

 the globe. These subsided according to the laws of specific gravity, 

 giving the strata of stone, earth and coal ; in all about 105 feet thick. 

 Whether the coal is terrestrial or cometary in origin cannot be 

 ascertained by study of this work. The author's conclusions are 



^ J. Woodward, " An Essay Toward a Natural History of the Earth and 

 Terrestrial Bodies," 2d cd.. London, 1702, pp. /2, 74, 77. 



^W. Whiston, "A Now Theory of the Earth," 4th cd., London, 1725, pp. 

 ^77, 278, .365, 419, 423, 425. 



4 



