ON THE UNIVERSAL DELUGE. 



is of vegetable origin, the plants from which it has origina- 

 ted, must have suffered an incomparably greater change 

 than those of more recent coal formations. Their com- 

 position and their texture, afford evidence of a long opera- 

 tion of the fluid in which the changes were produced ; 

 and their situation, proves that the substance of the 

 plants, though not entirely dissolved, was yet much com- 

 minuted, and was kept floating and swimming, and then 

 precipitated. How can we, in any other way, account 

 for the layers of sandstone and slate-clay, with which 

 coal regularly alternates, so that from one to sixty alter- 

 nate beds have been enumerated ? How can we explain 

 the combination of mineral coal with slate-clay, or ac- 

 count for the appearance of bituminous shale, flinty slate, 

 of iron-pyrites and iron-ore, in the midst of mineral coal 

 itself ? We do not, however, admit of a repeated uncover- 

 ing and covering of the land with water, and of a renewal 

 of vegetation for every particular bed of coal ; far from it, 

 for violent inundations exhibit very different phenomena, 

 These formations, like pure mineral formations, bear the 

 evident impress of a lengthened operation, and of gentle 

 precipitations ; and whoever still entertains doubts re- 

 garding this, may have them completely removed by 

 the condition in which vegetable remains are frequently 

 found in the coal formations, by the perfect preservation 

 of the most delicately shaped fern leaves, by the upright 

 position of stems, and by other appearances of a similar 

 character. It is also an important objection against the 

 universality of the cover of water, notwithstanding the 

 wide extent of beds of coal, that they are sometimes ac- 

 companied with fossil remains of fresh-water shells, from 



