162 Letter to the Right Hon. the Countess of Gosford, 



be happy to show when they venture to state them ; and that 

 our strata, as Ave find them, could not have been formed by che- 

 mical precipitation, or mechanical deposition, from the waters ot 

 the chaotic fluid, as Mr. Kirwau supposes. This respectable 

 countrvman of ours, who hazards himself further than any other 

 Neptunian I kuow, supposes the chaotic fluid to have been a 

 mighty menstruuui, from which our strata have been precipitated. 

 That this menstruum, holding- all the materials of the world in 

 solution, must have been very powerful at first, but gradualis' 

 abating in energy, as its materials were precipitated ; — hence 

 we should expect to find a perpet'ial gradation in the materials 

 of our strata, the upper parts dificriug from the lower, in each 

 separate stratum. 



Nothing like nature ; for we find the most decided uniformity 

 take place in all jiarts of the same stratum. 



Mr. Kirwan's theory is still more irreconcileable to the for- 

 mation of a mass, or accumulation of strata, always passing into 

 each other per sulium; and utterly iucompatil>le with the for- 

 mation of alternate strata, a most common arrangement. 



Admitting the chaotic fluid to have been the grand matrix of 

 our strata, and that agents we know not had altered the preci- 

 pitating powers of the same fluid ; the order of succession in the 

 strata would have been still the same ; and having the material 

 of one stratum, we could tell that of the next it rested upon, 

 and so on. 



Thus mining, where the material we seek for is disposed in 

 strata, (as coal,) woidd be the simplest science we have : — on the 

 contrary, we have not ascertained any regular order in our strata 

 in a vertical direction; and instead of pointing our efforts to ac*- 

 cumulate facts from different and distant places, we recur to 

 theory, assume modes of original formation, and thence deduce 

 rules to which Nature shows she is not subjected, even that of 

 specific gravities, giving us not the least assistance. 



I know that those conversant with the subject, state certain 

 indications, from which they infer the proximity of coal strata; 

 l)ut from our total ignorance of origiup.i formation, we have no 

 due to the order of arrangement, and cannot pronounce posi- 

 tively in any case, that we have coal strata beneath us. 



There seems to be a broad belt in our northern hemisphere, 

 through many parts of which coal strata are found at various 

 depths; but the difficulty of determining wliere we may expect 

 them is very great ; I fear insurmountable, if we look for cer- 

 tainty. 



Coal, ever since Marco Polo told us the Chinese burned black 

 stones, appears to be an article of the greatest importance, and 

 in some manufactures of prime necessity. Indeed the time seems 



to 



