1^2 CONSISTENCY OF GEOLOGY WITH SACRED HISTORY. 



According to Mr. De La Beche, wood and terrestrial plants are 

 found in most rocks, from the old red sandstone upwards, and, in fact, 

 in the order of rocks immediately beneath, i. e. the transition ; prov- 

 ing that dry land must have existed, more or less, previous to, or at 

 the time of the formation of most of these rocks. We may suppose, 

 therefore, that ponds, lakes and rivers, existed also. 



Arborescent plants, and their branches and roots, are often found 

 in the coal formations, and in their sandstones, &c. v/hich proves that 

 the gigantic vegetables were sometimes embraced in those depositions. 



It would appear, from the relics of the periods immediately suc- 

 ceeding the transition rocks, that vegetation had increased prodigious- 

 ly upon the earth, and that there were even trees and forests upon 

 those parts of the surface that had become sufficiently dry. 



Bituminous coal, belonging to the era of the earlier secondary, 

 or, as now agreed, to the transition, seems to have been formed, as 

 there is great reason to believe, from submerged and inhumed vege- 

 tables, chiefly of cryptogamous plants, whose vestiges are so numer- 

 ous in the coal mines. 



Coal, being peculiarly limited in its relations, and often contained 

 in basins, it seems probable, that it generally arose from local circum- 

 stances, with all its alternating and attendant strata of shales, sand- 

 stones, limestones, clays, iron ores, pudding-stones, &c. ; and, as these 

 depositions are often repeated several times, in the same coal basin, 

 and the mines are occasionally worked to a great depth, (even to 

 twelve hundred feet, in some places in England,) it is plain that no 

 sudden and transient event, like a deluge, could have produced such 

 deposits, although it might bury wood and trees, which, in the course 

 of lime, might approximate to the condition of lignite or bituminized, 

 or partially mineralized wood, which is often found under circumstan- 

 ces indicating a diluvial origin.* 



Early existeiice of trees. 

 It has been supposed, that the plants which have contributed to the 

 formation of coal were generally succulent, with little or no firm woody 

 fibre. It appears, however, from two memoirs by H. Witham, Esq. 

 of Edinburgh, that large trees, strongly resembling the Norway fir 

 and the yew tree, existed, even anterior to the deposition of the great 

 bituminous coal-field of the Lothians, around Edinburgh. Near that 

 city, in 1826, a fossil tree was discovered, three feet in diameter at its 



* See Am. Jour. Vol. XXV, p. 104. 



