But, even were we to suppose all those difficulties to be over
come, there is still an impossibility in the way of that inconsiderate
theory, and this will appear more fully in the following chapter.
SECT. III.--The Mineralogical Operations of the Earth illustrated from
the Theory of Fossil Coal.
There is not perhaps a greater difference among the various qualities of
bodies than that which may be observed to subsist between the burning of
those two substances, that is, the inflammable bodies on the one hand,
and those that are combustible on the other. I have treated of that
distinction in Dissertations upon subjects of Natural Philosophy, part
3d. where I have considered the different effects of those two kinds
of bodies upon the incident light; and, in a Dissertation upon the
Philosophy of Fire, etc. I have distinguished those two kinds of
substances in relation to their emitting, in burning, the fixed light
which had constituted a part of those inflammable and combustible
bodies.
All animals and vegetable bodies contain both those different chemical
substances united; and this phlogistic composition is an essential part
in every animal and vegetable substance.
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