GEOLOGY OF I.A SALTvE COUNTY. 



37 



phere, and that, therefore, veg'etation was ranker. 

 But those who reasoned thus did not ask themselves 

 if the atmosphere of the valley of the Amazon, of 

 the delta of the Niger and of the west part of Oreg-on 

 were richer in this o-as than the deserts of Arabia, the 

 arid wastes of the Utah basin, or the cold and 

 cheerless hig-hlands of Peru and Bolivia. They 

 assumed a cause and reasoned as if the facts were 

 in accordance with their assumptions. In fact, the 

 amount of carbonic acid g-as — CO3 of the chemist — 

 in our atmosphere is g-reatest in our cities ! But 

 are the trees largfer, the g-rass thicker and strong-er, 

 the flowers brig-hter and finer there than in the 

 country? But remember that there is just the same 

 reason for expecting- this to be the case that there 

 is for believing- that the carbonic ag-e was one of 

 exuberant veg-etation — of vast and heavy forests and 

 impenetrable thickets. 



Ag-ain, the densest veg-etable g-rowth known to 

 man in some parts of the Amazon valley and the 

 Isthmus of Darien would furnish material, were it 

 cut and scattered evenly over the land, scarcely 

 enoug-h to cover it to a depth of ten feet, or for 

 little more than one foot of coal. But such a 

 forest does not g-row in a day — we cannot place the 

 time required for its maturity at less than 100 

 years — and thus the production of a six-foot bed 

 of coal would require not less than 500 years ! But 

 the first g-rowth must be covered by soil, or must 

 decay to furnish support for the second, and would 

 not be available as coal-making- matter. This argfu- 

 ment may be carried much farther, but we have 

 said enoug-h to show the absurdity of the common 

 theory of the formation of coal, and the necessity 

 of a theory that accords with the facts as we meet 

 them every day. 



