106 THE CHEMISTRY OF CREATION. 



bined with pressure, is to reduce it to a black 

 substance, possessed of almost mineral charac- 

 ters. The decomposed mass becomes gradually 

 covered with a deposit of sediment : the great 

 pressure of which, when accumulated into beds 

 of clay, or sand of some thickness, gives the 

 hardness and density of a true mineral to this 

 substance. It thus becomes stored up, it may 

 be, for future employment in the service of 

 man.* 



It is interesting to remark the manner by 

 which it has pleased the Great Architect of the 

 world to order matters so, that out of the same 

 material, two products so totally different in 

 uses and structure as vegetable soil and coal, 

 should be formed. Woody fibre is the material 

 in both cases ; the result how different ! Thus, 

 the decay of plants and leaves on the surface, 

 in the course of a single year, restores to the 

 soil all the materials it had been deprived of in 

 their production ; and this is effected by one 

 sort of chemical decay. But the decomposition 

 by which coal has been produced, the object in 



* The leaves of ferns, reeds, and other plants, are fre- 

 quently found between layers of shale or slaty clay, beauti- 

 fully perfect, but quite converted into coal ! And in many 

 kinds of coal by means of very thin sections, and by the em- 

 ployment of the microscope, the cells of a vegetable structure 

 become visible ; thus affording us a distinct proof that coal is 

 really a vegetable substance, and produced by vegetable decay. 



