336 DR. ANGUS SMITH ON PEAT. 



ing our bituminous or blazing coals." He then compares 

 the recent club-moss (the Lycopodium) and the ancient one 

 (the Lepidodendron) , the latter being seen as a specimen 

 at Newcastle 3 feet in diameter and 49 feet high, whilst 

 the "living club-mosses are not much larger than your 

 finger, and the largest of them is not more than six feet 

 high." Prof. Huxley says, in a lecture on the formation 

 of coal, " If, as I believe, it can be demonstrated that 

 ordinary coal is nothing but ' saccular ' coal which has 

 undergone a certain amount of that alteration which, if 

 continued, would convert it into anthracite, then the con- 

 clusion is obvious that the great mass of the coal we burn 

 is the result of the accumulation of spores and spore-cases 

 of plants, other parts of which have furnished the car- 

 bonized stems and the mineral charcoal, or have left their 

 impressions on the surfaces of the layer." ' ( These facts 

 do not permit us to suppose that coal is an accumulation 

 of peaty matter, as some have held." 



Dr. Dawson, in a paper " On Spore-cases in Coal," says 

 " that sporangite beds are exceptional among coals, and 

 that cortical and woody matters are the most abundant 

 ingredients in all the ordinary kinds ; and to this I cannot 

 think that the coals of England constitute an exception." 



I have not examined coal ; but judging from the peat, it 

 seems to me probable that the truth may lie near the 

 above. The resins of trees are not found only in spores ; 

 and it may be that the bituminous or, rather, the hydro- 

 carbonaceous parts of coal were formed from the parts of 

 the plants containing the resins or similar bodies, no mat- 

 ter what we call them, fats and waxes included. This, I 

 am disposed to think, is the method with peat ; that it 

 should be so with coal seems most natural. 



If so, it mav be well to review the statements as to the 

 length of time needful to grow a foot of coal. But the 

 actual measurement is impossible. If we compare the 



