OF JOHN EDDOWES BOWMAN, ESQ. 67 
On remoying to Manchester, in the centre of a 
district distinguished for its vast mineral wealth, 
Mr. Bowman, with that admirable good sense 
which exercises its curiosity on contiguous and 
accessible objects, and with his characteristic fond- 
ness for tracing the prospective subserviency of 
the great arrangements of nature to the use and 
convenience of future conditions of existence— 
applied his mind to the solution of one of the most 
interesting problems of geological science—the 
origin of coal. He read a paper on this subject 
before the Manchester Geological Society, which 
was afterwards printed in their Transactions.* 
* On the Origin of Coal; and the geological conditions 
under which it was produced. Manchester Geological Tran- 
sactions, Vol. I. Art. vy. Read January 30th, 1840. 
It is hardly necessary to remind those who are at all 
acquainted with the history of geological science, that 
many of the views adopted by Mr. Bowman in this and 
the ensuing paper on the Fossil Trees had been already 
maintained by previous inquirers. His great merit consisted 
in the luminous statement and combination of these views, 
and especially in accounting for the origin of the successive 
seams of coal by applying for the first time to the peat bog 
theory, the periodical depressions of the earth’s surface, as 
recently observed by Mr. Charles Darwin. For this last 
remark I am indebted to Mr. E. W. Binney, Secretary of the 
Manchester Geological Society. 
