320 SCRIPTURE NATURAL HISTORY. 



from works of art being occasionally found in the mass. Pennant 

 reports, that the ancient Welsh found a flint axe in the midst of a 

 bed of coal. It is not questioned but the axe had been lodged in a 

 tree, and floated there by the ocean. In all places where the under 

 stratum is horizontal, the coal is horizontal; and where it is 

 inclined, as is mostly the case, the coal is inclined ; but where it is 

 rugged with rocks, the coal participates of the inequalities, being 

 broken into gauls. In such places the miner suddenly loses his 

 bed ; which, however, he finds again on working round. 



But coal, it will be said, often lies deep, and far below the level 

 of the sea ; and, that whatever weeds the tide may leave in bays, 

 they are raised again by the next tide, and mostly carried away. 

 Near Newcastle-upon-Tyne, the Montague main colliery is more 

 than one hundred and twenty fathoms from the surface, and cover- 

 ed with seventy-four strata. The Staffordshire coal lies on a 

 greater declivity, and nearer the surface. How deep the coal 

 descends is unknown, for the pits are not worked deeper than 

 seventy fathoms. 



All these considerations may be regarded as difficulties rather 

 than objections. In studying the situation of the Staffordshire coal, 

 the following solution presented itself to the mind of Mr. Sutcliffe, 

 which appears sufficiently satisfactory. First that the vast flotilla 

 of vegetables and timber, being completely locked, roots and 

 branches, by the undulations of the sea, would be deposited on the 

 soft surface'left by the preceding tide. Secondly, that the various 

 heath plants, which contain more iron than any other, with all 

 other kinds of vegetable, and often animal substances, would sink 

 downward among the bodies of the trees, so as to form one mass, 

 and greatly press the roots and branches into the soft earth. Con- 

 sequently the next tide, recoiling with indescribable impetuosity, 

 and being as turbid as the water could bear, could not possibly 

 raise the vegetable mass locked in itself, and now adhering to the 

 earth, until the waters were considerably advanced on a shore, 

 which dipped one yard every fourth, as is here the case : mean- 

 while, the turbid matter, among the calm produced by the roots 

 and branches, would make so rapid a deposit, that before the 

 waters were high enough to raise the flotilla, the mass under these 

 circumstances, would, almost instantly, become completely entomb- 

 ed by an incumbent stratum. The next tide would lay a second 

 stratum ; and every third, fourth, or fifth tide, seems to have brought 

 a new flotilla of timber, and eft it in the western bosom of the 

 mountain, which has become entombed and stratified as the for- 

 mer. In this manner, so far as the tremendous operations of the 

 deluge can be traced, in the short space of two leagues, fifty or 

 sixty beds of coal were laid on between Burslem and Mowcop, as 

 immense treasures for future times. The number of strata be- 

 tween each bed, apparently indicates the number of tides which 

 rolled against this primitive mountain, between the arrival of each 

 flotilla. On the eastern declivity of this mountain, where the 



