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have been alike unknown and unserviceable to man, but subsequent commotions 
brought them again near the surface, which, after acquiring a fresh vegetable coat¬ 
ing, suffered another depression and subjection to the compressing powers, to be at 
last consigned to their present position, the most favourable for their beneficial em¬ 
ployment that could well be conceived. 
What infinite occasion have we to admire the beneficence of the all-directing 
Providence, evidence of whose guiding of the storm is not wanting amid even the 
most terrible convulsions of nature ; for, when the framework of this globe appears 
ready to loosen and dissolve itself, and all the elements seem to blend themselves 
in disordered and confused mixture, yet order and design become manifest in the 
result. But for this regulating, this controuling power, by what computation of 
chances, equal indeed to infinity to one, could we have had our coal-strata and iron- 
ore occurring in the same district, in so many instances, as we find them in 
Britain ? If the comforts and interests of the present inhabitants of the earth 
were thus prospectively provided for, so long anterior to the occurrence of their 
wants, is it probable that the interests or comforts of future ages will be neglected 
by the omniscient, the omnipotent, and the eternal Creator ? These observations 
are here introduced because some, forgetting the attributes of Him, to whom they 
owe every sense, every faculty, and every gratification of these which they enjoy, 
have indulged in fears or doubts for the welfare of the future occupants of the 
globe, and supposed if the present coal-measures were exhausted, none would be 
accessible to them. Now, without speculating on the unascertainable point, whe¬ 
ther or not the future inhabitants of the globe shall require coals, we may, by ob¬ 
serving what is taking place in both the old and new worlds, perceive provision 
making for a store of this material. When we consider the almost boundless for¬ 
ests of America, India, and other tropical countries, occupying stations rarely trod 
by the foot of man, we might be tempted to think they were of no use, but were 
mere cumberers of the ground. Yet, independent of the great influence which 
they exert over the humidity, the temperature and climate of the regions where 
they flourish, being the grand sources of the mighty rivers, which debouche at an 
astonishing distance from their origin, much of the wood which grows along the 
banks of these gigantic streams, is annually borne down towards their mouths, and 
either arrested there, forming temporary islands, or carried forward, and ultimately 
precipitated to the bottom of the ocean. This process goes on to an extent of 
which few have any adequate idea; and what is every year so transported by the 
currents of the Mississipi, the Ganges, and the McKenzie rivers, surpasses the belief 
of most Europeans. At the outlet of these rivers immense rafts are seen waiting 
the moment when they shall be hurried onward to the deep, or sunk at once where 
they now float. At one of the outlets of the Mississipi a raft of this sort was ob¬ 
served ten miles in length, two hundred and twenty yards wide, and eight feet 
deep. The successive layers of these spread over the lower surface of the ocean 
