156 ON THE ORIGIN OF COAL. 



let US examine the great Coal-field of Lancashire, 

 now admitted to be the most perfectly developed 

 one in England. Before doing so, however, allow 

 me to direct attention to the errors which have 

 been generally propagated, with regard to car- 

 boniferous deposits, by describing nearly all of 

 them as Coal basins. Doubtless, synclinal axes 

 are to be met with in Coal-fields as elsewhere, 

 but not more frequently than in any other equally 

 ancient deposits. The great lines of fault by 

 which Coal-fields are traversed, have all been 

 formed after the deposition of their highest 

 members. But it has been common to suppose a 

 deep basin-shaped hollow in the crust of the 

 earth, of near eight thousand feet deep, having 

 a permanent bottom, which has been gradually 

 filled up by the deposition of limestone, and the 

 detritus of ancient lands, occasionally varied by 

 drifts of vegetable matter, so as to form Coal 

 seams. The fossil organic remains, both in the 

 limestones and Coal measures, on being examined, 

 clearly negative any supposition that when alive, 

 the creatures which belonged to them ever lived 

 but at moderate depths ; therefore, all the advo- 

 cates of the difi'erent hypotheses of the present 

 day, whether they attribute the origin of Coal to 

 vegetable matter, drifted from adjoining lands; 



