GOPPERT ON THE COAL FORMATION. 17 



atmosphere, destroyed all the structure of the Sigillarise, Lepidodendra, 

 and Stigmarise that was externally visible, that of the Coniferse, or 

 Araucarise, naturally kept equal pace with it {Hand in Handging)i2indi 

 hence in such cases we find the latter mixed with the coal only in 

 very minute fragments ; but where, as for example in Upper Silesia, 

 the Sigillarise and Lepidodendra are so beautifully preserved, we also 

 meet with entire stems of Araucariae a foot long, an observation which, 

 if I am not mistaken, still further explains the mode of origin above- 

 mentioned of this much-discussed fossil. 



The waters, apparently much agitated, brought with them large 

 quantities of sand and masses of clay, which formed the slate-bands, 

 and the bituminous shales {Brandschiefer) which are so often mixed 

 with the coal, or even entirely destroy it, as in some seams of the so- 

 called waste-coal or culm {Kohlenschmitze), which are not worth 

 working. 



IV. All the conditions, however, — the unvarying persistence of the 

 beds over spaces of many fathoms or even miles in extent ; the con- 

 tinuance for many fathoms in the coal itself of very thin layers, fre- 

 quently not more than one or two lines thick ; the regular interstra- 

 tification, often over no less wide spaces, of the so-called fibrous-coal ; 

 the condition of the vegetation, which, as in some places in Upper 

 Silesia, is still found included in them, — speak decisively for a very 

 quiet and gradual deposition of the plants collected in one bed of 

 ooal. 



V. The calculations, however, given by Elie de Beaumont and 

 myself, prove indisputably that the plants which can grow on an 

 equal surface are wholly insufficient to produce a bed of coal so 

 thick as frequently occurs ; whilst on the other hand the statements 

 just made, show that we can only have recourse to a peaceful depo- 

 sition, and not to a drifting together of materials from a wide circuit. 

 Hence it is evident, that to explain this phsenomenon, we are com- 

 pelled to assume that many coal-seams (I am far from extending this 

 assumption to all of them, for nothing is more prejudicial to the in- 

 vestigation of obscure relations than so-called generalizations,) are to 

 be regarded as the turf-beds (peat-mosses) of the ancient world, which 

 were formed during long periods of vegetable life, in the same man- 

 ner as the turf-beds of the present time often, as for instance in 

 Ireland, attain a thickness of forty or fifty feet. The Stigmaria, 

 which most probably was a moisture-loving plant, with its long di- 

 chotomizing boughs spreading out for thirty to fifty feet on all sides 

 of the central stock, and covered with spine-like leaves of an undoubt- 

 edly soft, herbaceous nature, attached at right angles, seems highly 

 adapted, with the aid of the Calamites (decided marsh plants) which 

 never fail to be associated with it, to form the basis of such a bed of 

 turf, — a view confirmed by the altogether enormous frequency in which 

 they occur in every coal-bed with which I am acquainted. 



VI. In the unaltered vegetable fibre the proportion of oxygen and 

 hydrogen greatly preponderates over the carbon ; in brown and com- 

 mon coal the proportion is reversed. In the decaying vegetable fibre 

 the carbon continually increases, whilst the hydrogen and oxygen 



VOL. VI. PART II. C 



