120 STEVENSON— FORMATION OF COAL BEDS. [April i8, 



Egyptian chronology with that of Ussher, committed themselves in 

 blunders now regarded as ludicrous. 



In presuming to discuss conclusions reached by fellow-workers, 

 the writer makes no pretence to superior judicial capacity; during 

 the progress of this work he has discovered only too many proofs 

 that his knowledge is defective, -his judgment fallible and his mind 

 on the defensive against novel conceptions. His conclusions are 

 merely opinions based on extended observations in many lands during 

 more than 40 years, and on careful study of literature bearing on all 

 sides of the case. They are offered in the hope that they may prove 

 to be of service to some student in the future. 



Hypotheses presented to explain the formation of coal beds fall 

 naturally into two groups ; one asserting allochthonous origin of the 

 plant material, the doctrine of transport ; the other asserting autoch- 

 thonous or in situ origin of that material. The former conception is 

 the older. 



Allochthony. 



The earliest observers, for the most part, saw in the rocks 

 records of only cataclysmic action; for them, proofs of the Noachic 

 deluge exist everywhere. In cosmogonies from the sixteenth to the 

 nineteenth century, that flood is supposed to have covered the globe 

 as a universal ocean, lashed into fury by winds, so that it tore away 

 forests and bared the mountains ; the whole mass of debris was 

 swept into maelstroms, spread over the whole surface and, at length, 

 deposited under selective influence of gravity. The majesty of the 

 catastrophe had grown with the telling, and descriptions had become 

 so vivid that the pictured conditions seemed to be reality. But the 

 ravaging disaster was, in greatest part, imaginary ; the Hebrew^^" 

 chronicle relates nothing to enforce the conception. It describes the 

 deluge as merely a rain flood, which destroyed animals by drowning 

 but did not destroy the trees. There is no assertion of violence, for 

 the clumsy ark drifted at ease throughout, the occupants resting 

 apparently in comfort. The idea, however, was normal ; all were 

 familiar with the power of rushing waters, so that there was needed 



''" Genesis, Chapters VII., VIII. 



