Vegetables in Coal Measures. gO& 



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figured) and. consequently of having inscribed on the regis- 

 ters of science, a fact which Messrs Beaunierand de Gallois, 

 Engineers of the mines of the department of the Loire, have 

 shewn me. 



. It was long since known that coal deposltes are accomi; 

 panied by a great quantity of vegetable remains ; it has also 

 long since been remarked that vegetables resembling our 

 ferns, and stems which do not exactly resemble that of any 

 known plant, are most abundant in this formation ; but it is 

 not long since that it has been remarked that the entire 

 system of these vegetable remains is different from the entire 

 system of the same kingdom found in the more recent beds 

 of the globe ; lastly, but few years have elapsed since it has 

 been recognised that these vegetable remains were not al- 

 ways extended between the fissures or on the surface of the 

 beds, and parallel to their stratification j but that they in 

 some places cut them, that they traversed them in many, 

 that they were even perpendicular to them, and lastly, that 

 they sometimes occurred in the vertical position in which 

 vegetables usually grow.. 



If these ideas had been more generally spread, if the facts 

 which they establish had not been considered as exceptions 

 owing to chance, theories would not have been proposed, 

 even lately, on the formation of coal, which are iu evident 

 contradiction with these facts. 



The vertical stems we are about to describe, have already 

 been mentioned by M. de Gallois ; they occur in the most 

 distinct manner at the mine named du Treuil, at a 1000 

 metres [3076 feet] to the N. of St. Etienne, department of 

 ^he Loire. 



The coal formation ofiers in this place two circum- 

 stances, which are rare, but very favourable for observation ; 

 it occurs in beds evidently horizontal, and situated in such a 

 planner, that it can be worked in open day, and as a quarry^ 

 50 that it has furnished us with a very uncommon opportu- 

 nity in this kind of formation, of observing a natural and 

 complete section of the different rocks and minerals com- 

 posing it, and of being able to represent them with a cleari 



