76 THE MEDALS OF CREATION. Cup. V. 
Near Limerick, in the district of Maine, one of the States of 
North America, there are peat bogs of considerable extent, 
in which a substance similar to cannel coal is found at the 
depth of three or four feet from the surface, amidst the 
remains of rotten logs of wood, and beaver-sticks :* the peat 
is twenty feet thick, and rests upon white sand. This coal 
was discovered on digging a ditch to drain a portion of the 
bog, for the purpose of obtaining peat for manure. The 
substance isa true bituminous coal, containing more bitumen 
than is found in any other variety.t Polished sections of 
the compact masses exhibit the peculiar structure of coni- 
ferous trees, and prove that the coal was derived from a 
species allied to the American fir. 
Coau.—We proceed to the examination of that remark- 
able substance which has resulted from the perfect bitumi- 
nization of the vegetables of the most ancient Flora which 
geological researches have brought to light, and to which 
the term Coal is commonly restricted. 
Although Balthazar Klein in the sixteenth century 
affirmed that coal owed its formation to wood and other 
vegetable substances,t yet I can well remember when many 
eminent geologists were sceptical on this point; and the 
truth in this, as in most other questions of natural philo- 
sophy, was established with difficulty. The experiments 
and observations of the late Dr. Macculloch, mainly contri- 
buted to solve the problem as to the vegetable nature of 
this substance; and that eminent chemist and geologist 
successfully traced the transition of vegetable matter from 
* Pieces of wood fashioned by the beavers for the construction of 
their dams. 
+ An analysis of 100 grains gave the following results :—Bitumen 
72; carbon, 21; oxide of iron, 4; silica, 1; oxide of manganese, 2; 
= 100. 
~ Sternberg’s “ Flore du Monde Primitif.” 
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