BENEFICIAL DISPOSITION OF COAL STRATA. 525 
It remains to consider some of the physical 
operations on the surface of the Globe, to which 
we owe the disposition of these precious Relics 
of a former world, in a state that affords us ac- 
cess to inestimable treasures of mineral Coal. 
We have examined the nature of the ancient 
vegetables from which Coal derives its origin, 
and some of the processes through which they 
passed in their progress towards their mineral 
state. Let us now review some further impor- 
tant geological phenomena of the carboniferous 
strata, and see how far the utility arising from 
the actual condition of this portion of the crust 
of the globe, may afford probable evidence that 
it is the result of Foresight and Design. 
It was not enough that these vegetable re- 
mains should have been transported from their 
native forests, and buried at the bottom of an- 
cient lakes and estuaries and seas, and there 
converted into coal ; it was further necessary 
that great and extensive changes of level should 
elevate, and convert into dry and habitable land, 
strata loaded with riches, that would for ever 
have remained useless, had they continued en- 
tirely submerged beneath the inaccessible depths, 
wherein they were formed ; and it required the 
exercise of some of the most powerful machinery 
in the Dynamics of the terrestrial globe, to effect 
the changes that were requisite to render these 
Elements of Art and Industry accessible to the 
