80 
sandstones, &c, of the carboniferous strata. No doubt 
there are both. The fossil pecten of the Halifax and 
Sheffield bottom coal shales, denotes a mixture at least of 
saltwater, and the enormous mass of freshwater mussels, 
of the middle coal and ironstone beds of Shelf and 
Low Moor, are a strong evidence of the strata having 
been deposited in a lake or inland sea. I think the 
major part of the vegetation from which coal has been derived, 
has grown upon dry land, or in swampy lagoons, similar to 
the Cypress Swamps of the Delta of the Mississippi, described 
by Sir Charles Lyell ;* also in Mr. Hawkshaw's Reminis- 
cences of South America ; and the researches of Mr. E. W. 
Binney, who, with praiseworthy industry, has laboured to 
explain those curious trees, the Lepidodendron and Sigillaria, 
of which the coal is so largely composed in the Lancashire 
and Yorkshire beds. I suspect, however, the annual fall of 
the foliage has contributed more to the deposit than the 
stems themselves, the reed-like calamite has evidently 
been a water-plant, from its being found in such abundance 
in the black shale, rather than in the coal itself, though there 
are beds of coal on the Continent, largely composed of cala- 
mites.f Mr. Binney says, "where the plants grew and the strata 
" in which they are found, were no doubt deposited under water 
" and shew no evidence of being dry land p. 162. " The 
" presence of the remains of bivalve shells and fish in cannel 
" coal clearly proves that it was formed under the water 
p. 163. " In the upper new red sandstone, of Western Bank, 
" near Runcorn, in Cheshire, we have the first evidence hitherto 
" discovered of dry land in England.' ' Again he remarks, 
" There is no positive evidence of dry land before the tertiary 
" period." Sir R. I. Murchison observes, " It may be well to 
" state that there is no geological difference between stone 
* P. 334. of his Manual. 
+ Manchester Philosophical Society, see vol. 13, p. 167. 
