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actually driven into the furnaces of lime-kilns, in order to answer the purposes of fuel. This fact could hardly have been mentioned as credible, however undoubted, if a decree of the King of Spain, prohibiting this barbarous custom, were not still preserved in the archives of Buenos Ayres.

The inhabitants of the sea-coasts, who happen to be remote from better fuel, or too poor to obtain it, collect sea-weed (Fucus vesiculosus, Linn.) and such like stuff for firing—an indifferent enough material for the purpose, as may readily be supposed. In the Norman Isles, sea-weed is assiduously gathered by the inhabitants, both for fuel and manure: it is called in French varech, and in the Jersey dialect "vraic.”*

The most convenient, and happily the most abundant, kinds of fuel known in this and most civilised countries, are peat, dried wood, charcoal, and fossil coal, either in the state in which it is raised from the mine, or in the condition of coke. The history of peat, as immediately coming within the design of the present work, will form the subject of the next Chapter; while wood fuel will be subsequently adverted to, in connection with those vicissitudes to which the iron and other trades in this country were exposed, during their transition from a dependence upon our decaying forests, to those inexhaustible depositories of coal, descriptions of the history, working, and commercial importance of which can scarcely fail to impart a lively interest to the ensuing pages.

* The season of collecting this substitute for coal and firewood is made a season of merriment in Jersey; the times of vraicking are appointed by the island legislature, and then multitudes of carts, horses, boats, and vraickers cover the beach, the rocks, and the water.-Inglis's " Channel Islands," vol. i.

CHAPTER II.

GEOLOGICAL THEORIES.

Interesting character of Geological Science-Extent of knowledge required for successful investigation— Controversies and conflicting theories-Important connexion between Geology and Revelation-Question of progressive developement of Species-Hutton and Werner-Subterranean temperature-Paroxysmal and Cataclysmal Eras of MM. Beaumont, Brongniart, and Cuvier-Jameson's Remarks -Mineral and Mosaical Geologies contrastedFairholme Theory of Werner-Tabular view of the positions of Strata-Formations-Gradation of Fossils of vegetable origin.

THE science of Geology, a science still in its infancy, has been pursued of late years with an ardour commensurate to the importance of its bearings in relation to the physical structure of the earth, no less than as developing a series of phenomena of the most striking and interesting character. Nor is the study of this comprehensive subject at present confined in its scientific attractions to divines and philosophers on the one hand, nor on the other hand is it left to miners and metallurgists alone to estimate its practical im

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portance. It has become essential to a liberal education, that a man know something of the stratification of the globe upon which he lives, and to the fossil and mineral riches of which he is so largely indebted. Even under the softer designation of an accomplishment, some acquaintance with the principles of Geology is not unfrequently acquired by individuals of both sexes as a source of elegant intellectual recreation. Formerly, indeed, the few learned men who paid attention to this science, if science it could then be called, did so, either as the devisers and defenders of capricious theories, or as the champions or opponents of revelation, just as those theories were considered favourable or inimical to the Mosaic accounts of the Creation and the Deluge. To these learned controversies it is unnecessary farther to allude, as the present remarks are intended merely to introduce such a brief glimpse of geological doctrines as may enable the general reader, in some degree, to understand the relative position of the beds of mineral coal among those numerous and diversified strata, with which the investigations of art and science have made us acquainted.

The study of Geology in the extended sense, and as the subject is treated by recent writers, such as De la Beche and Lyell, particularly the latter, whose voluminous work is extremely interesting,-requires a comprehensive knowledge of geography, meteorology, anatomy, conchology, botany, and natural philosophy in general. For it is only to persons somewhat conversant with the manner in which these and numerous other branches of physical investigation are made to bear upon the modes of accounting for various phenomena, discoverable in the present and recorded of

IMPORTANCE OF GEOLOGY.

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past states of the earth's crust, that the interest of the science can be rendered greatly apparent. The elevation of mountain-masses, the formation of valleys, the recession or encroachment of the sea, the phenomena of rivers and lakes, the activity of volcanoes, thermal springs, and the operation of numerous other causes, give rise to speculations which call forth the most ample resources of knowledge for their support, elucidation, or correction.

In the developement of phenomena consequent on these enquiries, it is certainly not surprising that the reverers of the most ancient and authentic historical document in the world, should at all times have felt sensibly alive to whatever was put forth as evidence on this subject, whether appearing to confirm or to oppose the sacred cosmogony of the Book of Genesis. It must be admitted, however, that the advocates of the integrity of the sacred record have sometimes committed themselves and their righteous cause, by the exercise of a zeal not according to knowledge. Their error, to speak of it comprehensively, has been twofold: in the first place, they have hastily confided the sustentation of the credit of the Mosaic account to one plausible hypothesis or another, and these failing, by the discovery that their foundations were not laid in physical facts, the enemies of revelation have assumed, still more unwarrantably, that the whole fabric of Divine Truth must be one of equal instability in the second place, they have too often spoken and written as if, admitting the inspired authenticity of a passage, we are compelled to adopt as infallible its commonly received interpretation. This is, confessedly, a delicate point, and one in all disquisitions connected with which too great a degree of precaution

cannot be exercised; but it must be exercised on the part of the divine as well as the geologist; for, while the latter produces facts, apparently in overwhelming abundance, to shew that certain notions long entertained may possibly be unfounded, and submits that the advocates of revelation act unwisely in forcing interpretations at variance with phenomena,-the former has no right to place an issue of so much importance to mankind as the credibility of the Bible History, on the very dangerous presumption that no scheme of explanation, no method of reconciling seeming discrepancies, surpassing his own, can ever be attained to.

Let it not be supposed for a moment, from what is here said, that it is intended to undervalue the labours of those who have sought to reconcile the modern discoveries in Geology with the commonly received interpretations of the Mosaic accounts of the creation and the deluge; much less to throw any slight on the successful efforts of those who have shewn what may be accomplished in this way; nor, least of all, let it be imagined that any apprehension is entertained, as if the testimony of physical phenomena can ever be opposed to the spirit of divine revelation. A competent authority has declared, that "the facts developed by Geology are consistent with the accounts of the creation and deluge, as recorded in the Mosaic writings." It is against that presumptive principle which strives to make theology and physics, studies essentially distinct, the vehicles of perpetual reprisal, that the present caution is directed.

A passing allusion to the systems of Hutton and

* Buckland's Vindiciae Geologicæ.

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