The situation of this bed of coal is not singular, and its formation is easily explained on Dr Hutton's theory. It is part of a stratum of coal, which has been deposited, like all others, at the bottom of the sea; from whence certain causes, of very general operation, have raised it up, together with the attending strata: these strata have since been all cut down, and worn away by the operations of the surface; and the mountain, with the coal stratum in the middle of it, is a part of them which has been left behind. There is no wonder, that a coal stratum should be found alternating with others, in a mountain, any more than in the bowels of the earth, and no more need of a separate explanation.[58] [Footnote 58: This stratum of coal, which is described by HASSENFRATZ, is remarkable for being in a mountain which rests immediately on primary schistus and granite.] 147. After all, it may be asked, for what purpose is it that so many incongruous and ill supported hypotheses are thus piled on one another? is it only to avoid ascribing the carbonic and bituminous matter of coal to a substance in which we know with certainty that such matter resides in great abundance, in order to derive it from other substances, in which a subtle analysis has shown, that it exists in a very small proportion? Such reasoning is so great a trespass on every principle of common sense, not to say of sound philosophy, that, to bestow any time on the refutation of it, is, in some degree, to fall under the same censure. NOTE III. § 7. _Primitive mountains._ 148. The enumeration of the different kinds of primary schistus, at § 7, is not proposed as at all complete. It will be less defective, however, if we add to it _talcose schistus_, and _lapis ollaris_ or _potstone_.[59] [Footnote 59: Kirwan's Mineralogy, vol. i. p. 155.] 149. The rocks called here by the name of primary, were first distinguished, as forming the basis of all the great chains of mountains, and as constituting a separate division of the mineral kingdom, by J. G. LEHMAN, director of the Prussian mines. See his work, intituled, _Essai d'une Histoire Naturelle des Couches de la Terre_.[60] These rocks were regarded by Lehman as parts of the original nucleus of the globe, which had undergone no alteration, but remained now such as they were at first created; and, agreeably to this supposition, he bestowed on them, and on the mountains composed of them, the name of primitive. He remarks, nevertheless, their distribution into beds, either perpendicular to the horizon, or highly inclined, and the super-position of the secondary and horizontal strata. However mineralogists may now differ in their theories from Lehman, they must consider this distinction as a great step in the science of geology, and very material to the right arrangement of the natural history of the earth.