o f their deposition in the strata o f the Earth, an
ulterior prospective view to the future uses o f
Man, formed part o f the design, with which they
were, ages ago, disposed in a manner so admirably
adapted to the benefit o f the Human Race.
mines of silver or of gold. From these sustaining sources of
industry and wealth let us help ourselves abundantly, and liberally
enjoy these precious gifts of the Creator; but let us not abuse
them, or by wilful neglect and wanton waste, destroy the foundations
of the Industry of future Generations.
Might not an easy remedy for this evil be found in a Legislative
enactment, that all Coals from the Ports of Northumberland
and Durham, should be shipped in the state in which they
come from the Pit, and forbidding by high penalties the
screening of any Sea-borne Coals before they leave the Port at
which they are embarked. A Law of this kind would at once
terminate that ruinous competition among the Coal owners,
which has urged them to vie with each other in the wasteful
destruction of small Coal, in order to increase the Profits of
the Coal Merchants, and gratify the preference for large Coals
on the part of rich consumers ; and would also afford the Public
a supply of Coals of every price and quality, which the use of
the screen would enable him to accommodate to the demands of
the various Classes of the Community.
A farther consideration of national Policy should prompt us to
consider, how far the duty of supporting our commercial interests,
and of husbanding the resources of posterity should permit
us to allow any extensive exportation of Coal, from a densely
peopled manufacturing country like our own ; a large proportion
of whose present wealth is founded on machinery, which can be
kept in action only by the produce of our native Coal Mines,
and whose prosperity can never survive the period of their exhaustion.
Proofs o f Design in the Effects o f Disturbing
Forces on the Strata o f the Earth.
In the proofs of the agency o f a wise, and
powerful, and benevolent Creator, which we
have derived from the Animal and Vegetable
kingdoms, the evidence has rested chiefly on
the prevalence o f Adaptations and Contrivances,
and o f Mechanisms adapted to the production of
certain ends, throughout the organic remains of
a former world.
An argument o f another kind may be founded
on the Order, Symmetry, and Constancy, of the
Crystalline forms o f the unorganized Mineral
ingredients o f the Earth. But in considering
the great geological phenomena which appear
in the disposition o f the strata, and their various
accidents, a third kind o f evidence arises from
conditions o f the earth, which are the result of
disturbing forces, that appear to a certain degree
to have acted at random and fortuitously.
Elevations and subsidences, inclinations and
contortions, fractures and dislocations, are p henomena,
which, although at first sight they present
only the appearance o f disorder and con