Weekly national intelligencer. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1841-1869, 1852-02-28

wer enombed form successive beds of coal This sue
eesSo repeated in some fifty times or more In
No Scotia* there successive platforms occupying
neatly half mile in thickness in which not only the
smder plants entombed bnt trees standing are
numerous; they grew successive Soils the then upper
surfce of them is believed to be twenty five feet
long, but in general only in this but in other
similar instances, only stumps Of Of few feet in
height found, that is when they remain where they
grey When they PROSTATE, they often in trunks
twenty to seventy feet long, trees lie in modern
forests We may presume then, that in those in
which they remained in place. their trunks rising into the
air gradually decayed, far they above the
ter and above the investing materials brought around
then by its agency As to the general condition Of things
there be doubt although the exact Of the
proceeding may involve degree Of uncertainty
As to the moral object, form other conclu-
sion than that benefeent Providence in which preset
and power and goodness equally conspicuous,
did, at this early period before the emerged land
trodden BY solitary airbSeathng, warmbloodsa quad
ruf~d with dense and perenn1 yegeation of
peculiar knd in general less Arm hxn that Of 6odern
forests that it readily yielded the pres
sure progressively supermposcd by earthly materials
sometimes with large depositcs Of cayron ores; and
thus it both compacted into dense to form the
coal strata atmospheric decomposition and
subeetsd peculiar fermentation which great
delicate plants while the btumen and gas pre-
served except where from peculiar they de-
composed, or expelled to form anthracite.
To what extent the coal plants transported cannot
perhaps be exactly determined but it appears certain
that the greater part Of them Inferred where they
grew and ourished in appropriate situations which ap
pear to have been generally in the low lands plains,
esuaries lakes &C.. and when find the coal beds in
mountains Wkesbarre, Maueh Chunk, Frosburg, Pitts
elevated to the positions where find them The
coal of the United States is exceedingly abundant exist
ing fields unequaed for extent in any other
try and there are many parts Of the world where the
coal exists and has not been opened only partially.
The store of coal in the globe is therefore but
in those countries where it is not found where there
is any danger of its exhaustion planting is wisely
sorted to- is done in England, France Germany Prus
sin, Saxony, and other countries of Europe
There suppose that the proper of the
formation Of coal win return only peat and buried
wood and possibly Ignite, belong to the present order Of
things.
A rapid sketch then given of the vegetation be-
tween the eras of the coal and the chalk.
The conera (eyergreens bearing cones began at the
coal Trees of that general character first in
troduced at that epoch and along with them palms
bers Of both Of which families found in the coal
From that time onward the coniferm and palms. in
Species very much multiplied, and the proper
coal vegetation either ceased its members became Of d
minutiye size Ccade ALSO and zamas and yuccas and
other known in climates were introduced
but the formation of coal had in great ceased
only in the ooe, peculiar limestone which lies between
the upped red sandstone and the chalk there in
countries partial coal formxtion
The vegetation of the world at that period very
stately and beautiful The tall and graceful palms pines
in majestic forests and the minor trees and plants
chiefly tropical filled up this picture of vegetable nature
of which the coal vegetation the prelude and these
groves in turn formed the transition the still grander
of the tertiary era long to be described Among
and petrifed forests not uncommon. Slick flint
and lme the materials that most usual in the
petrifed wood; their quiet and prolonged introduction
by wacy submeron has copied the vegetable structure
often very perfecy that tree in structure gives fire
with STEEL dissoves in acids with efervescence,
burns to quick lme Numerous instances mentioned
fossil forests, and that of Portland England consist
ing of tropical trees grew at period anterior to that Of
the chalk and is covered by vast formation
the weaden, and this by the chalk, which is of marine
origin and this again by the tertiary which is both of
marine and fresh-water origin.
brief notice was given Of the peat swamps and they
spoken of presenting analogy to the coal
formations, inasmuch the plants are perennial and
grow among them and they covered by strata
similar those Of the COAL they might approach to it in
character although the vegetation is quite different and
no such event on considerable scale can in this Of
the world be expected.
Described by Sir Charles Lyell