_Secondly_, There is much fossil coal, particularly that termed in
England clod coal, and employed in the iron foundry, that shows
abundance of vegetable bodies in its composition. The strata of this
coal have many horizontal interstices, at which the more solid shining
coal is easily separated; here the fibrous structure of the compressed
vegetable bodies is extremely visible; and thus no manner of doubt
remains, that at least a part of this coal had been composed of the
vegetable bodies themselves, whatever may have been the origin of the
more compact parts where nothing is to be distinguished.
The state in which we often find fossil wood in strata gives reason to
conclude that this body of vegetable production, in its condensed state,
is in appearance undistinguishable from fossil coal, and may be also in
great quantity; as, for example, the Bovey coal in Devonshire.
Thus the strata of fossil coal would appear to be formed by the
subsidence of inflammable matter of every species at the bottom of the
sea, in places distant from the shore, or where there had been much
repose, and where the lightest and most floatant bodies have been
deposited together.
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