STATE OF FOSSIL PLANTS IN NEWCASTLE COAL-PITS. 343 



We shall farther illustrate this point, by a brief descrip- 

 tion of the manner in which the remains of vegetables are 

 disposed in the Carboniferous strata of two important Coal 

 fields, namely, those of Newcastle in the north of England, 

 and of Swina in Bohemia, on the N. W. of Prague. 



The Newcastle Coal-field is at the present time supplying 

 rich materials to the Fossil Flora of Great Britain, now 



be discovered, thus affording the fullest evidence, if any such proof were 

 wanting, of the Vegetable Origin of Coal. 



" Each of these three kinds of coal, besides the fine distinct reticulation 

 of the original vegetable texture, exhibits other cells, which are filled with 

 a light wine-yellovvcoloured matter, apparently of a bituminous nature, and 

 which is so volatile as to be entirely expelled by heat, before any change 

 is effected in the other constituents of the coal. The number and ap- 

 pearance of these cells vary with each variety of coal. In caking coal, 



the cells are comparatively few, and are highly elongated In the finest 



portions of tliis coal, where tlie crystalline structure, as indicated by the 

 rhomboidal form of its fragments, is most developed, the cells are completelv 

 obliterated. 



"The slate-coal, contains two kinds of cells, both of which are filled with 

 yellow bituminous matter. One kind is that already noticed in caking coal ; 

 while the other kind of cells constitutes groups of smaller cells, of an elon- 

 gated circular figure. 



" In those varieties which go under the name of Cannel, Parrot, and 

 Splent Coal, the crystalline structure, so conspicuous in fine caking coal, 

 is wholly wanting; the first kind of cells are rarely seen, and the whole 

 surface displays an almost uniform series of the second class of cells, 

 filled with bituminous matter, and separated from each other by thin fibrous 

 divipion;:. Mr. Hutton considers it highly probable that these cells are 

 derived from the reticular texture of the parent plant, rounded and con- 

 fused by the enormous pressure, to which the vegetable matter has been 

 subject." 



The author next states that though the crystalline and uncrystalline, or, 

 in other terms, perfectly and imperfectly developed varieties of coal gene- 

 rally occur in distinct strata, yet it is easy to find specimens which in the 

 compass of a single square inch, contain both varieties. Erom this fact 

 as also from the exact similarity of position which they occupy in the mine, 

 the differences in different varieties of coal are ascribed to original dif- 

 ference in the plants from which they were derived. Proceedings of Geolo- 

 gical Society. Land, and Edin. Phil. Mag. 3d Series, Vol. 2 p. 302. April. 

 1833. 



