Finally, let it be assumed, in the argument for the geologists, that vast masses of vegetable matter are already stored up and duly arranged over the sea-bottom, that more is continually accumulating, and that there is heat enough under the earth’s crust to bituminize and indurate the whole. A new coal epoch is thus approaching, or rather, even now, we are living within its influences. But the question occurs, when completed, of what avail would it be to man, who would inevitably be swept off the earth in the elevation and breaking up of the strata from the depths beneath? Geology makes known the undoubted fact, that our planet has been subjected to many and most extensive changes before it was reduced to its present condition. These, from the beginning, have been all found subservient to the improvement and well-being of the human family. The next, upon a similar scale of magnitude, would inevitably prove the destruction of the race. [Illustration: 1. Sigillaria pachyderma. 2. Stigmaria ficoides. 3. Lepidodendron Sternbergii.] CHAPTER IX. GEOLOGICAL STRUCTURE OF FIFESHIRE—DIVISIONS OF THE COAL-FIELD. The general remarks on the coal deposit, in which we have been led to indulge in the two last chapters, may be verified by, as they all receive the most ample illustrations from, the admirable arrangement, position, and distribution of the metals in the counties of Fife, Clackmannan, Stirling, Lanark, and Renfrew, which are extensions of one great basin. Fifeshire alone contains an epitome of the system, divided as it is into numerous compartments, the encrinital limestone cropping out and marking their several boundaries. Indeed, the whole series of the carboniferous rocks are here laid open for examination on every hill-side, in the numerous ravines which intersect the district, and along the eastern and southern coast-lines. Approaching the coal-field from the north, a panoramic section at once fills the eye, and will rivet the attention, as, stepping from the strata of the antecedent epoch, you find, in immediate superposition as well as contrast of color, the multiplied and more diversified reliquiæ of the coal-measures.