92 TOWN GEOLOGY. [iv. 



of the human race, and that the Negro is actually a 

 man and a brother. 



If the only two types of men in the world were an 

 extreme white type, like the Norwegians, and an 

 extreme black type, like the Negros, then there would 

 be fair ground for saying, " These two types have been 

 always distinct ; they are different races, who have no 

 common origin." But if you found, as you will find, 

 many types of man showing endless gradations between 

 the white man and the Negro, and not only that, but 

 endless gradations between them both and a third 

 type, whose extreme perhaps is the Chinese endless 

 gradations, I say, showing every conceivable shade of 

 Tesemblance or difference, till you often cannot say to 

 what type a given individual belongs ; and all of them, 

 however different from each other, more like each 

 other than they are like any other creature upon earth ; 

 then you are justified in saying, "All these are mere 

 varieties of one kind. However distinct they are 

 now, they were probably like each other at first, and 

 therefore all probably had a common origin.'' That 

 seems to me sound reasoning, and advanced natural 

 science is corroborating it more and more daily. 



Now apply the same reasoning to coal. You may 

 find about the world you may see even in England 

 alone every gradation between coal and growing 

 forest. You may see the forest growing in its bed of 

 vegetable mould; you may see the forest dead and 

 converted into peat, with stems and roots in it ; that, 

 again, into sunken forests, like those to be seen below 

 high-water mark on many coasts of this island. You 

 find gradations between them and beds of lignite, or 

 wood coal ; then gradations between lignite and 



