If there is thus, from the continual perishing of animal and vegetable
bodies upon the surface of this earth and in the sea, a certain supply
of oily or bituminous matter given to the ocean, then, however small a
portion of this shall be supposed the whole oily or inflammable matter
produced upon the surface of the earth, or however long time it may
require for thus producing a stratum or considerable body of coal,
we must still see in this a source of the materials proper for the
production of that species of strata in the bottom of the sea.
We have now considered the proper materials of which pure fossil coal
is chiefly formed; we have at present to consider what should be the
appearances of such a substance as this collected at the bottom of the
sea, and condensed or consolidated by compression and by heat. We should
thus have a body of a most uniform structure, black, breaking with a
polished surface, and more or less fusible in the fire, or burning with
more or less smoke and flame, in proportion as it should be distilled
or inspissated, less or more, by subterranean heat.
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