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Dr. Hutton ingeniously laboured to establish his hypothesis of 

 the succession of worlds by a system of revolutions, occurring at 

 regular periods, each successive period of existence being, accord- 

 ing to our measurement of time, of indefinite duration ; leaving us 

 no vestige of a beginning, nor prospect of an end. Agreeable to 

 this hypothesis, the Doctor imagined that coal is formed by the 

 slow deposition of oily and bituminous matters at the bottom of 

 the sea. These bituminous and oily matters he supposes to have 

 originated in the dissolution of the various animal and vegetable 

 bodies, which are continually perishing on the surface of the earth, 

 and in the waters of the ocean. The fuliginous matter which is 

 separated during the combustion of various bodies on the surface 

 of the earth, he supposed to be washed off the surfaces on which 

 it fails, by the rain, and, being thus made to flow into the rivers^, is 

 carried by them into the sea ; where it also adds, by its deposition, 

 to the mass which is accumulating at its bottom. Another source 

 from which he supposes this matter to be derived, is the moss-water, 

 or the water which drains from peat-mosses. This moss-water, the 

 Doctor says, leaves upon evaporation, a bituminous substance, 

 which very much resembles fossil coal ; and, as the continued action 

 oif the sun and atmosphere upon this oily substance tends, by in- 

 spissation, to make it more and more dense or bituminous, he, 

 therefore, saw no difficulty in supposing a continual separation of 

 this bituminous matter, or inspissated oil, from the water; and a 

 precipitation of it to the bottom of the sea, along with the subtle 

 earthy particles which the water also contains. These he supposed 

 to subside together in an uniform manner, producing a stratified 

 mass, which, becoming covered by an immense weight of super- 

 incumbent earth, must have been thereby exceedingly compressed 

 and condensed, and finally consolidated, by the powerful influence 

 of subterranean heat. 



Waving, as foreign to the immediate object of our inquiry, any 



