236 



observations on Dr. Hutton's general geological system, I shall 

 only here remark, that his particular theory, respecting the forma- 

 tion of coal, is exposed to the same insuperable objection, as was 

 offered against the hypothesis just noticed, that of making sub- 

 stances of much less specific gravity than water, sink through that 

 fluid. Can any intermixture with impalpable earthy matters, which 

 the Doctor supposes to take place during their subsidence, pos- 

 sibly authorize the supposition that light bituminous, or fuliginous 

 matters, or vegetable or animal oils, could subside through the 

 waters of the ocean, so as to form this extraordinary subaqueous 

 stratum of fossil coal ? 



The opinions of Dr. Hutton have been combated by several inge- 

 nious writers; but those which respect the origin of coal have been 

 attacked by no one more successfully than by Mr. Williams, in his 

 History of the Mineral Kingdom. This gentleman, possessing a 

 very considerable degree of knowledge on this subject, the result of 

 actual observation, and confining himself to those inferences which 

 seemed necessarily to flow from the phenomena which he remarked, 

 concluded that the antediluvian timber was the original of our pre- 

 sent coal. This conclusion he was kd to make, from ha v ing ob- 

 served the form, grain, and texture of timber so frequently in coal. 

 He observes, that wood is the origin of coal is so plain and evident 

 a truth, that we can almost trace and point out the particular species 

 of wood which composed particular species of coal*. He more 

 particularly delivers his opinion in another place, where he says,. 

 " I am of opinion that the antediluvian timber floated upon the 

 chaos, or waters of the deluge, until the strata of the highest moun- 

 tains were formed, with much of the other strata in our. sight; and 

 that during the height of the deluge, and the time in which the 

 greatest part of the strata were forming, the timber was preparing s 



% 



* History of the Mineral Kingdom, vol. i. p. 251, 



