OP MINERAL COAL. 55 
strength of the kingdom. To an inhabitant of Great Britain, there- 
fore, this subject must be far more interesting than to ourselves; yet 
if we take any pleasure in studying the circumstances upon which 
the wealth of nations depends, and investigating the causes by 
which their prosperity is promoted, it will not be without attrac- 
tions for persons born and bred on the western side of the Atlantic. 
Coal, using the word in a sense a little different from that in 
which it is generally received, for mineral carbon, under what- 
ever form it appears, is sparingly distributed through all the 
formations, from the most ancient primitive, quite up to the most 
recent alluvion. The black lead of Wake county and other parts 
of North Carolina, is an example of carbon in a primitive rock. 
At the other extremity of the scale is the substance bearing the 
name of lignite, , (fossil wood) still retaining its fibrous texture 
very perfectly in some places, and in others approaching as nearly 
to coal, that is found imbedded in the clay and sand of the low- 
country, one of the most recent cf the tertiary strata. If a 
quantity of fallen leaves be carried down by one of our rivers 
and deposited in some arm or bay, setting out from the stream, 
where the water is still, and a layer of sand and gravel be after- 
wards thrown out upon this vegetable mass, it will constitute a 
coal-field in miniature. Time will be required for the chemical 
affinities to exert themselves, but with time, it will be converted 
as it is believed that all the varieties of coal have already been 
converted, into a substance, fitted for the purposes either of manu- 
facturing industry or domestic economy. 
Peat is a kind of fuel that is now in the act of being formed, 
especially in the higher latitudes, in all parts of the world. It con- 
sists of the remains of ancient forests, covered over with beds of 
moss and sometimes simply of the moss itself, almost to the ex- 
clusion of everything else. Layer after layer in succession springs 
up, comes to maturity, decays, and dies, leaving the vegetable 
matter that entered into its composition, and especially the carbon, 
upon the spot where it grew. A thick bed is at length formed, 
the upper part of which is made up of the roots and stems of the 
sphagnum; (which is the kind of moss that flourishes most in such 
situations as are favourable to the formation of peat); the middle 
is much altered by the action of the water, and the bottom is 
converted into what is nearly related to coal. 
33. All the strata mentioned in the enumeration heretofore 
made, as forming together the south-eastern part of the island of 
Great Britian exhibit thin seams of coal, but except in the single 
formation to which our attention is now directed, they are not 
worth working — are mere objects of geological curiosity. But the 
mineral wealth of the coal measures makes ample compensation 
for the poverty of the other strata. 
They consist of a series of alternating beds of coal, slate clay, 
and sandstone, the alternations being frequently and indefinitely 
repeated. 
