33 



part of this bed, and even of the whole surface of this island, 

 the remains are discoverable of vast forests which have 

 suffered little other change than that of having undergone 

 different degrees of bituminization. 



By these facts we learn that, at some very remote and 

 early period of the existence of this planet, it must have 

 abounded with plants of the succulent kind, and, as it 

 appears from their remains, in great variety of forms and 

 luxuriance of size. These, from what is discoverable of 

 their structure, beset with setce. and spines, were not formed 

 for the food of animals ; nor, from the nature of the sub- 

 stances of which they were composed, were they fitted to 

 be applied to the various purposes to which wood, the 

 product of the earth at a subsequent period, has been found 

 to be so excellently adapted, by man. Their remains, it 

 must also be remarked, are now found in conjunction with 

 that substance which nature has, in all probability, formed 

 from them ; and which, by the peculiar economical modi- 

 fication of its combustibility, is rendered an invaluable 

 article of fuel. If this be admitted to be the origin of coal, 

 a satisfactory cause will appear for the vast abundance of 

 vegetable matter with which the earth must have been 

 stored in its early ages : this vast, and in any other view 

 useless, creation, will thus be ascertained to have proceeded 

 from a beneficent arrangement by Providence for man, the 

 being of a creation of a later period. 



ANIMAL FOSSILS. 



The mineralized remains of animals are found in subter- 

 ranean situations, in almost every part of the globe which 

 has been explored. The immense number, the high an- 

 tiquity, and the general disagreement of these remains with 

 those animals which now exist, give rise to the most in- 



