OF NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. 45 



We shall therefore proceed to illustrate by examples 

 the effect of physical knowledge under each of these 

 heads : 



(36.) Ex. 1. (35.) I. It is not many years since 

 an attempt was made to establish a colliery at 

 Bexhill, in Sussex. The appearance of thin seams 

 and sheets of fossil-wood and wood-coal, with some 

 other indications similar to what occur in the neigh- 

 bourhood of the great coal-beds in the north of 

 England, having led to the sinking of a shaft, and 

 the erection of machinery on a scale of vast expense, 

 not less than eighty thousand pounds are said to 

 have been laid out on this project, which, it is almost 

 needless to add, proved completely abortive, as every 

 geologist would have at once declared it must, the 

 whole assemblage of geological facts being adverse 

 to the existence of a regular coal-bed in the 

 Hastings' sand; while this, on which Bexhill is 

 situated, is separated from the coal-strata by a 

 series of interposed beds of such enormous thick- 

 ness as to render all idea of penetrating through* 

 them absurd. The history of mining operations is 

 full of similar cases, where a very moderate ac- 

 quaintance with the usual order of nature, to say 

 nothing of theoretical views, would have saved 

 many a sanguine adventurer from utter ruin. 



(37.) Ex. 2. (35.) II. The smelting of iron re- 

 quires the application of the most violent heat that 

 can be raised, and is commonly performed in tall fur- 

 naces, urged by great iron bellows driven by steam- 

 engines. Instead of employing this power to force 

 air into the furnace through the intervention of 



