192 DR. BENNETT, ON THE STRUCTURE OF 



where pretended that these were everywhere px'esent in the 

 mineral. It is of great importance, therefore, not to confound 

 the organic plants imbedded in a substance with the substance 

 itself. The occurrence of Stigmaria or other vegetable remains 

 in coal, or in the Torbanehill mineral, no more constitute 

 those substances coal, than they convert sandstone and lime- 

 stone into coal, in both which rocks they are also found. Nor 

 do I imagine it can be generally maintained that because 

 animal substances, such as teeth, jaw-bones, or the skeletons 

 of fishes and lizards, are occasionally found imbedded in 

 stone, that therefore they form an essential and necessary 

 part of the stone itself. At the trial, great amount of 

 confusion resulted from not keeping this distinction clearly 

 in view. 



Thus when Mr. Quekett stated that all that which may be 

 supposed like vegetable structure in the Torbanehill mineral 

 disappears when the structure is thin, he was asked by the 

 Dean of Faculty, " When you speak of that which appears as 

 vegetable structure, you mean those isolated fossil plants ?" to 

 which Mr. Quekett unfortunately answered, " Yes ;" for what 

 he really meant was, not the isolated imbedded plants, but the 

 structure of the mineral itself. In consequence, the counsel 

 for the pursuer and for the defender truly played at cross- 

 purposes throughout the whole of the structural evidence ; 

 for, notwithstanding the clearness of Dr. Balfour's statement, 

 he was asked, after saying that the mineral consists of a plant, 

 whether he had seen fossil plants in stone ? to which he an- 

 swered, Yes. But then being asked whether he considered 

 that an example of such an appearance, he very correctly, ac- 

 cording to his views, answered. No. 



From the published report of the trial, however, by Mr. 

 Lyell, it is evident that the eminent gentlemen who contended 

 that the Torbanehill mineral was a vegetable substance 

 abounding in cells, did not adopt this idea because various 

 plants were imbedded in it, but because they believed the 

 clear rounded masses I have described were themselves vege- 

 table cells. Unfortunately, the possibility of this theory being 

 adopted had not been anticipated, nor was it perceived by the 

 counsel for the pursuer. In consequence, the witnesses on 

 the one side were made to declare that the Torbanehill mineral 

 was not vegetable, and on the other that it was, without the 

 true reason of this discrepancy ever having been made to 

 appear. 



Dr. Balfour stated in court, that he believed the yellow part 

 of the Torbanehill mineral to consist of vegetable cells ; that 

 it was not the mere im])ression of a foreign fossil, but the 



