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General Remarks on the Coal Formation of the Great Valley of 
the Scottish Lowlands. By Lord Greenock, C.B., LL. D., 
V..P.R.S, Ed. F. G.S. 
(Read 15th December 1834. ) 
Tuere is perhaps no geological problem of greater interest 
than that by which the conditions of the globe, in respect to the 
distribution of land and water, at the epoch of the coal formation, 
might be determined, if the necessary data for its solution could 
be obtained. We possess sufficient evidence to shew that, since 
that period, most of the continents and islands of the present day 
have been elevated above the waters, under which they were ori- 
ginally formed ; but such proofs are altogether wanting when we 
endeavour to restore, in imagination, the probable extent of the 
older formations that might then have existed as dry land, but 
which now lie buried in the depths of the ocean, or have since 
been covered by an accumulation of more recent deposits. 
If we consider the immense quantity of detrital matter, that 
must have been required to form beds of such prodigious extent 
and thickness, as many of those which are met with in the coal- 
fields of different parts of the world ; we shall naturally be led to 
the conclusion that, in the immediate neighbourhood of these 
deposits, much more extensive tracts of land must have existed, 
in connection with each other, than could possibly have been af- 
forded by the older portions of the present countries. For what- 
ever might have been the conditions of the globe, in this respect, 
at that epoch, we have convincing proofs in the organic remains 
of plants, which abound in all the members of the carboniferous 
series, as well as in the acknowledged vegetable origin of the coal 
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