Note 55 — Chapter V
Reading edition
In this coal-field are beds of limestone several feet thick, abounding in cyprides, fresh-water mollusks, &c.—Sil. Syst. p, 84.
[56] The immense thicknesss of some coal-beds, without any intercalations of earthy materials, seems to be inexplicable on any other supposition but that of accumulations of drift-wood and plants. In the Great Exhibition of 1851, there was exhibited, on the outside of the west end of the Crystal Palace, a section of the lowest bed of coal from Tividale Colliery in South Staffordshire, the total thickness of which was 29 feet, with no intermixture whatever of sediment, except some thin shaly partings: the entire mass was composed of carbonized vegetables.
[57] Sir R. I. Murchison has treated this subject with great ability: see Sil. Syst. chap, xi., and the illustrative maps opposite, p. 152.