These are a few of the facts connected with the arrangement and distribution of the coal-measures, in whatever quarter of the globe they are found. Is it possible to resist the conclusion, that, in such a disposition of things, there are the clearest indications of contrivance and design? Nay, that the argument derived from the construction and positions of the solid parts of the earth is the same in kind, if not in degree, with that which is so irresistibly demonstrative in the case of the organic structure of the living frame? The dance of atoms imagined by the philosopher of antiquity, could never have terminated in the perfect order and harmony of the heavenly bodies—innumerable systems of worlds maintained,—each hung upon nothing, and duly preserved all of them in their respective spheres. Equally impossible is it to contemplate a disposition of things so adapted, and indeed so indispensable, for availing ourselves of the mineral treasures of the earth—essential to our wants, and ministering so directly to our social comfort and improvement—and yet to refer the whole, or any part, to the blind operation of fortuitous causes. Impossible, indeed, it ever will be, for the human mind to embrace or unravel all the mysteries of creation; but thus admitted to the mighty wonders of the interior, we are almost enabled to trace the history of the moving atoms from their chaotic disorder into their places and arrangement in the visible universe—to see dead matter assuming the forms of life and organization—clothing the earth for a season with luxuriance and beauty—buried for ages under the solid rock—and again, out of coldness and death, affording light, and warmth, and power to the successive generations of men.