124 DR. REDFERN, ON THE TORBANEHILX, 



Structurally, I place cannel coals at one end of the scale 

 and anthracite at the other, common coals intervening. In 

 anthracite it is very difficult to show vegetable structure of 

 any kind ; in common or house coal this can be done more 

 easily ; and in cannels most readily of all. The cannels I 

 should arrange as follows: — Torbanehill, Bathvale, Bar- 

 bachlaw, Wemyss, Methill, Capledrae, Lesmahago, Wigan, 

 &c. 



Space will not permit me to enter upon a detailed descrip- 

 tion of the appearances presented by other coals when ex- 

 amined microscopically. I may state, however, that those 

 which the cannels present are essentially similar to those 

 which I have described in the Torbanehill coal. I refer, for 

 confirmation of this statement, to the figures of Methill, 

 Wemyss, and Capledrae coals. The house coals differ more 

 widely in structure from the cannels than these do amongst 

 themselves ; yet I think the essential features of the structural 

 arrangements are nearly the same in all. 



I know of nothing whatever to countenance an idea put forth 

 in the paper before named, — that all our coals are formed of 

 soniferous wood. On the other hand, I join geologists and 

 naturalists in admitting the obvious and constant jiresence of 

 fossil stigmariae, lepidodendra, ferns, mosses, &c., as evidence 

 that coal-beds were formed of such plants. 1 think the mi- 

 croscope affords the most conclusive evidence that the struc- 

 tural arrangements of coal are totally different from those of 

 wood ; and that it points to the formation of coal, especially 

 of cannel coal, from a more or less fluid pulp, resulting from 

 maceration and chemical changes taking place in large masses 

 of vegetable tissues, such as are now going on in peat bogs, 

 especially in those which are semi-fluid and quaking. Every 

 one knows the effect produced upon the potato, apple, turnip, 

 &c. — masses of vegetable cells — by boiling. The individual 

 cells are isolated, and a soft pulp results The anatomist 

 knows that maceration produces precisely similar results on 

 animal and vegetable tissues ; and it is in this way that I 

 believe the elements of the tissues of plants have been sepa- 

 rated from each other, partially disintegrated, and re-arranged 

 in a laminar form preparatory to their solidification into a 

 mass of coal. Whether such coal contain an enormous per- 

 centage of fixed carbon, and give out scarcely any gas, as in 

 anthracite ; or have but a small quantity of fixed carbon, and 

 give out a large quantity of gas, by the union of its hydrogen 

 with other carbon, as in the Torbanehill coal, seems to de- 

 pend upon the nature and amount of chemical change to 

 which it has been subjected in its formation. In parts of 



