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‘ 
Abstraction of Nitrogen from the Atmosphere. 89 
existed, so circumstanced, that more water, at certain times, 
was lost by evaporation, than was received by their ordinary 
sources? Such seas, on becoming saturated, would deposit 
their salt, along with its peculiar stony or shell prodactions. 
r the mass of insoluble matter, at their bottom, might 
come cha with a strong saline solution. Either of these 
suppositions will explain the phenomenon of the salt of the 
western country. 
The position of salt, on taking the facts of the European 
geologists, accords, almost precisely, with the limits which 
we have fixed for the anthracite and bituminous Coal, name- 
ly, commencing with the last of the transition (the gray 
wacke formation) and the first formations of the secondary 
elass ; for, neither anterior nor posterior to these periods, is 
salt known to exist, in notable quantity. Whence this accor- 
dance, if it depended not upon the active powers inferred for 
this particular period ? The conditions required for the ordi- 
n ode in which we find salt, are, first, strong winds, to 
cause a great mass of salt water to be thrown upon the land; 
secondly, strong hot winds, to favour the “rush he cathy 
water; and, finally, abrading powers, to furnish t thy 
materials requisite to shield the salt deposited fr-at the action 
of its solvent. oe 
OF MECHANICAS <RODUCTS. 
The geology of the Unixd States presents, in the clearest 
; . : reater accumulation of rolled stones, 
d, (sandstone) of mud, (slateclay, &e.) 
cts of the destructive agents of nature, 
towards the <lose of the #ansition, and the commencement of 
_r=uge of the old red sandstone, cannot but have had the 
same conclusion forced upon them. The period of the depo- 
sition of the rocks of these ranges, is the period to which our 
reasoning applies, and consequently strengthens the correct- 
ness of the application made, ‘of geological phenomena, to 
show an abstraction of nitrogen from the atmosphere. 
OF MARINE SHELLS, &c. 
The pelagian shells and their coexistent marine remains, 
“are among the most wonderful of the phenomena of nature, 
VOL; X1.—No; 1. tes 
