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93 



kELlCS OF PKIMKVAL LIFE 



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carbon or coal, except that of living plants, which 

 are always carrying on this function to an enor- 

 mous extent. We know that all our great beds 

 of coal and peaty matter are composed of the 

 remains of plants which took their carbon from the 

 air and the waters in past times. We also know 

 that this coaly vegetable matter may, under the 

 influence of heat and pressure, when buried in the 

 earth, be converted into anthracite and into graphite, 

 and even into diamond. It is true that an emi- 

 nent French chemist * has shown that graphite and 

 hydrocarbons may be produced from some of the 

 metallic compounds of carbon which may have 

 been formed under intense heat in the interior of 

 the earth, by the subsequent action of water on 

 such compounds ; but there is nothing to show that 

 this can have occurred naturally, unless in very 

 exceptional cases. Now in the Grenvillian system 

 in Canada there is not only a vast quantity of 

 carbon diffused through the limestones, and fillini;^ 

 fissures in other rocks, into which it seems to ha\c 

 been originally introduced as liquid bitumen, but 

 also in definite beds associated with earthy matter, 



* Henri Moissan, " Proceedings Royal Society," June, 1896. 



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