GKOIvOGY OF I.A SAIvLE COUNTY. 



35 



the forest were not numerous. The Deer Park beds 

 — northeast part of Deer Park Township — prove 

 beyond cavil that much of the land at one time at least 

 was covered with a g-rowth of shrubs less than twenty 

 feet in heig^hth and rarely exceeding- five inches in 

 diameter. That densit}^ of veg^etation of which we 

 hear so much in most w(.rks on coal is a figment of the 

 imagination, scarcely more than the baseless fabric of 

 a vision, the child of a theory to which the facts must 

 be fitted, the theory that our coal beds are the product 

 of vast masses of veg^etation, covered by sediments, 

 and in time by heat, pressure and the chemical chang-es 

 these agents produced, changfed to coal. Hence w^e 

 read of " stored sunbeams," " stored up energ-y," and 

 other fanciful and taking appellations, to which it is 

 time for science to say g^ood-bye. The theory rests on 

 very slender foundations, if it has a foundation, and 

 serves to distort facts, misdirect observation and mis- 

 lead observers. Let us look at a lump of coal. We 

 see that it is made up of layers, varying- in thickness 

 and color, some being of a shining jet black, others of a 

 dull hue, and some almost gray, and some of them look 

 as if composed of many very thin plates closely pressed 

 together, often thin as thin paper. Here we find 

 scales of golden and brass-colored pyrite, or snowy or 

 tinted calcite, there a hard mass which examination 

 shows to be pyrite in another form, and on the faces of 

 these masses we often find marks almost like the 

 impressions of a seal, others of squares and rhomboids, 

 and now and then a very leaf-like looking figure. But 

 these, while in the coal, and, we feel sure, are of veg-- 

 etable origin, are not coal. We find also in the shales 

 and slates long- narrow^ fig-ures much like the leaves of 

 corn, and jointed stems like those of some rushes, and 

 many other things which we are sure were once grow- 



