21 
as the probable site from whence they were drifted, are 
we to conclude that owing to considerable disturbing move- 
ments of the land at remote epochs, no part of such ancient 
continents or islands now appear above the surface of the 
ocean ? which theory Professor Phillips appears to advocate, 
who observes, " Where, then, was situated that ancient land 
from which were swept the materials of the 1,000 yards 
of sandstones and shales which inclose the coal deposits in 
most parts of England and the continent of Europe ? The 
slaty mountains of Cumberland, the Isle of Man, Cavan, 
&c, were perhaps above the water, but could they . alone 
yield the materials for the argillaceous sediments, 1,000 
feet thick, of Enniskillen, Derbyshire, and Craven? The 
Lammermuir mountains to the north seem not to be of 
such composition as would yield the coarse quartose sand- 
stone; we must, therefore, appeal to the Grampian or 
Scandinavian ranges ; or finally close all further discussion 
by admitting that tracts of land, which supplied part of 
the sediments, mixed with the limestone of the carbon- 
iferous period, have disappeared from the northern and 
western oceans"* Again, " May we venture to suppose that 
the primary tracts of the Scandinavian peninsula and Scot- 
land, with other lands now sunk beneath the German Ocean, 
have been the sources of most of the arenaceous and argilla- 
ceous deposits of the Carboniferous, Oolitic, and Wealden 
formations of England? In this point of view, the local 
strata of Brora, the thick coal series of Bornholm, the 
Oolitic coal tracts of Yorkshire and Westphalia, the Weal- 
den of Boulogne, Beauvais, Sussex, Dorset, and Wilts, are 
all partial and local deposits due to a similar succession of 
causes, and arising from the same or neighbouring physical 
regions, as the materials of some of the older coal strata. 
In Bornholm, coal occurs with marine beds of all geological 
* Treatise on Geology, vol. i., pp. 178, 180. 
