BENEFICIAL DISPOSITION OF COAL STRATA. 393 



almost exclusively from strata of the Transition series. 

 Examples of Coal in any of the Secondary strata are few 

 and insignificant ; whilst the Lignites of the Tertiary forma- 

 tions, although they occasionally present small deposites of 

 compact and useful fuel, exert no important influence on the 

 economical condition of mankind.* 



It remains to consider some of the physical operations on 

 the surface of the Globe, to which we owe the disposition of 

 these precious Relics of a former world, in a state that af- 

 fords us access to inestimable treasures of mineral Coal. 



We have examined the nature of the ancient vegetables 

 from which Coal derives its origin, and some of the processes 

 through which they passed in their progress towards their 

 mineral state. Let us now review some farther important 

 geological phenomena of the carboniferous strata, and see 

 how far the utility arising from the actual condition of this 

 portion of the crust of the globe, may afford probable evi- 

 dence that it is the result of Foresight and Design. 



ft was not enough that these vegetable remains should 

 have been transported from their native forests, and buried 

 at the bottom of ancient lakes and estuaries, and seas, and 

 there converted into coal; it was farther necessary that 

 great and extensive changes of level should elevate, and 

 convert into dry and habitable land, strata loaded with 

 riches, that would for ever have remained useless, had they 

 continued entirely submerged beneath the inaccessible 



* Before we had acquired by experiment some extensive knowledge of 

 the contents of each series of formations which the Geologist can readily 

 identify, there was no d priori reason to expect tlie presence of coal in any 

 one Series of strata rather than another. Indiscriminate experiments in search 

 of coal, in strata of every formation, were tlierefore desirable and proper, in 

 an age when even the name of Geology was unknown; but the continuance 

 of such Experiments in districts which are now ascertained to be composed of 

 non-carboniferous strata of the Secondary and Tertiary Series, can no longer 

 be justified, since the accumulated experience of many years has proved, 

 that it is only in those strata of the Transition Series which have been desig- 

 nated as the Carboniferous Order, that productive Coal-mines on a large 

 scale have ever been discovered. 



