TRANSACTIONS OF THE SECTIONS. 51 
On the other hand, calculation shows, that to form such thick strata of coal as 
occur in our country (to the thickness of from thirty to sixty feet), the plants which 
could grow upon the same area, even in their most luxuriant condition, would never 
have sufficed. I therefore cannot but suppose that a large part of our layers of 
coal have been formed after the manner of our peat moors, during a long course 
of time; and certainly in the humid way, as I have formerly attempted to show, 
and as I have more recently exemplified satisfactorily by experiments. If, for in- 
_ stance, we keep vegetables in boiling water for a long time (for three months to a 
year), they are converted into brown coal (lignite), and they acquire at last a totally 
black coal-like condition, if we add a small quantity of sulphate of iron, in the 
proportion of half a drachm to six ounces of plants; no one will doubt that this 
salt, which occurs so commonly in coal, has largely cooperated in the formation of 
the mineral. 
I may state that many spherosiderites of the coal haye been produced just as 
_ our marsh iron ores (Limonite, Rasenerz) now are. 
On Sea Water, and the Effects of Variation in its Currents. 
By Prof. Forcunammer of Copenhagen. 
The author, referring to a chemical examination of sea water in different latitudes 
and currents, tried to show the influence which a change in oceanic currents might 
have had upon the climate of the North of Europe, The inquiries of Prof. Steenstrup 
and Lovén respecting the changes in the forest- trees and marine animals indicated a 
slow increase of the mean temperature of Northern Europe. To account for this, Dr. 
_ Forchhammer supposed the British Channel to have been closed, and a polar current to 
haye passed over the lower partsof Northern Russia into the Bothnian Gulf, and thence 
into the German Ocean. The separation of England from France was supposed to 
have taken place in recent times ; and without quoting the zoological evidence col- 
lected by British naturalists, he would refer to physical features,—such as the va- 
_ rious changes which the Rhine and the Scheldt suffer at their mouths, and which even 
the smallest rivulet on the western shore of the Cimbrian Peninsula undergoes. 
These rivers turn their mouths towards that side from which the tide comes,—one ha- 
Ying, in historical times, changed its mouth more than thirty miles to the south. The 
mouth of the Rhine has been known for about 2000 years; and since the time of 
the Romans, when it flowed straight towards the north, where at present the Zuy- 
der Zee is, it has been seen constantly turning towards the west. From this change, 
he inferred a change in the direction of the tide, which he supposes to have arrived 
formerly at the coast of Holland from the north, instead of from the west, as at pre- 
sent, The marshes on the southern and eastern sides of the German Ocean become 
| broader in proportion as they approach the mouth of the present channel ; a circum- 
tance the very reverse of what might have been expected under present circum- 
stances, since the clay is never deposited when there is any considerable motion in 
the water. On the contrary, if the Channel were shut up, then the present locality 
of the marshes would be that best adapted for their formation: from which he infers 
that the principal marshes were formed before the opening of the Channel. The 
) earliest accounts of the Channel date from the fourth century 8B.c., and at the time 
f Alexander the Great we find that news of a very great inundation in the north- 
ern countries (the Cimbrian flood) had reached Greece; and a tradition still ex- 
isting in Jutland connects such a flood with the opening of the Channel. Along 
all the western part of the Cimbrian Peninsula occurs a bed of pebbles, and in some 
jlaces occur rolled pieces of the clay of the marshes, which must be ascribed to an 
undation washing away the lighter materials. This inundation the author regards 
‘as that of which both history and tradition speak ; and he thinks it was occasioned. 
by the first opening of the Channel. These changes were in close connexion witha 
depression of the greater part of Northern and Western Europe ; which is indicated 
ong the coasts of Denmark and England by submerged forests and peat-mosses. 
In the shore of the dukedom of Sleswig a tumulus has been found in a submerged 
st ; it contained knives of flint, and shows that the subsidence took place after 
the country-was inhabited. The continuous elevation of the North of Europe would 
d to this result,—that the White Sea would flow over the lower parts of Russia 
EZ 
