322 Notice of the Anthracite Region in the 



able skeleton? There seems tio more reason to doubt the latter fact, 

 than that the vegetable impressions, found in and upon the coal and its 

 rocks, have the same origin. But did the mass of coal arise from 

 vegetables ? This has been admitted by many persons with respect to 

 bituminous coal, but, 1 have heretofore been inclined to attribute an- 

 thracite coal to a direct mineral creation ; the opinion of its vegeta- 

 ble origin appears however to me less improbable, since I have seen, 

 with my own eyes, the incontrovertible and abundant proofs of vege- 

 table life in these mines. We are obliged, from the facts here seen, 

 to go a great extent, in admitting vegetation in connexion with this 

 coal. But if we seek to trace the entire masses to vegetable mat- 

 ter, how shall we admit the existence and accumukdon of the enor- 

 mous quantities that must have grown or been collected on the spot, 

 to form such stupendous beds, ten, twenty, and thirty feet in thickness, 

 and repeated, again and again, with all their attendant rocks and im- 

 pressions. But, the plants, from ferns and liliputian vegetables to those of 

 great size, did grow, and were deposited, in connexion with these coal 

 strata; for, there we find their unquestionable and exuberant remains ; 

 and they were produced again and again ; for we find them in the 

 different deposits, as the coal strata succeed each other at different 

 depths. As the vegetables, whose organized forms or impressions 

 we actually find, did exist in these places, could there by any pos- 

 sibility, have been enough accumulated to form the coal beds ? If 

 it is difficult to answer in the affirmative, perhaps it is not quite cer- 

 tain that we must reply in the negative ; at least it is not, I must con- 

 fess, quite so certain, as I once thought it to be. 



But, supposing the vegetable matter to have existed in sufficient 

 quantity to have formed the coal ; why, if so formed, is there in gen- 

 eral, no appearance of ligneous structure, of vegetable organization in 

 the coal itself? On this point it may be suggested, that the vegetable 

 matter may have been so decomposed, as to lose, in a great degree, 

 its organization ; it may have been suspended or deposited in water 

 along with the same earthy matter, which formed the accompanying 

 rocks, and particularly the coal slate, and this earthy matter may 

 have been deposited along with and among the particles as well as the 

 masses of coal ; now in minute proportion, as we actually find it in 

 burning even the purest anthracite, the form and structure of whose 

 layers, is delicately exhibited by the earthy skeleton, commonly call- 

 ed ashes, which remains ; now, the earthy matter may have pre- 

 vailed to a greater degree and then the coal is more impure, less 

 combustible, and affords a more abundant residuum; again the earthy 



