GEOLOGY. 89 



position. It is of a yellowish white colour, contains but 

 few organic remains, and is in some places 30O feet 

 thick. 



THE NEW RED SANDSTONE consists of red and white 

 sandstones, clays, marls, &c., containing grains of quartz, 

 mica, &c., all conglutinated together. Messrs. Cony- 

 beare and Buckland gave to this series the term 

 Poikilitic, or variegated, from its exhibiting spots of 

 different colours in a red base. The New Red Sand- 

 stone generally occupies a low country, and is found 

 largely in the central counties of England. These strata 

 are, in some instances, 1,OOO feet thick. The organic 

 remains in this group are fishes of a race quite extinct, 

 and saurians, or animals of the lizard kind. 



In Cheshire, and other parts of England, salt mines 

 and salt springs are found to occur in this group. The 

 salt mines in Cheshire consist of two beds, and are of 

 very considerable extent. Salt mines are worked in 

 Wieliczca in Poland, at the depth of 750 feet. These 

 mines have been so excavated, and are of such an extent, 

 as to contain a whole village, with horses, &c. &c. ; and 

 what is very remarkable, there are in these salt mines 



of the principal forests have not, like modern trees, undergone decay, 

 yielding back their elements to the soil and atmosphere by which 

 they had been nourished ; but treasured up in subterraneous store- 

 houses, have been transformed into enduring beds of coal, which, in 

 these later ages, have become to man the sources of heat, and light, 

 and wealth. My fire now burns with fuel, and my lamp is shining 

 with the light of gas, derived from coal, which has been buried for 

 countless ages in the deep and dark recesses of the earth. We pre- 

 pare our food, and maintain our forges and furnaces, and the power 

 of our steam-engines, with the remains of plants of ancient forms and 

 extinct species, which were swept from the earth ere the formation of 

 the transition strata was completed. Our instruments of cutlery, the 

 tools of our mechanics, and the countless machines which we con- 

 struct by the infinitely varied applications of iron, are derived from 

 ore for the most part coeval with, or more ancient.than, the fuel by 

 the aid of which we reduce it to its metallic state, and apply it to in- 

 numerable uses in the economy of hnman life. Thus, from the wreck 

 of forests that waved upon the surface of the primeval lands, and from 

 ferruginous mud that was lodged at the bottom of the primeval waters, 

 we derive our chief supplies of coal and iron, those two fundamental 

 elements of art and industry, which contribute more than any other 

 mineral production of the earth, to increase the riches, and multiply 

 the comforts, and ameliorate the condition of mankind." 



