would remain unchanged, and would accumulate to form a calcareous ooze; but at greater depths they would be acted upon by the water, their lime would be dissolved out, their form would disappear, and we should simply have left the small amount of alumina which they previously contained.  In process of time this alumina would accumulate to form a bed of clay; and as this clay had been directly derived from the decomposition of the shells of animals, it would be fairly entitled to be considered an organic deposit.  Though not finally established, the hypothesis of Sir Wyville Thomson on this subject is of the greatest interest to the palaeontologist, as possibly serving to explain the occurrence, especially in the older formations, of great deposits of argillaceous matter which are entirely destitute of traces of life.

It only remains, in this connection, to shortly consider the rock-deposits in which carbon is found to be present in greater or less quantity.  In the great majority of cases where rocks are found to contain carbon or carbonaceous matter, it can be stated with certainty that this substance is of organic origin, though it is not necessarily derived from vegetables.  Carbon derived from the decomposition of animal bodies is not uncommon; though it never occurs in such quantity from this source as it may do when it is derived from plants.  Thus, many limestones are more or less highly bituminous; the celebrated siliceous flags or so-called “bituminous schists” of Caithness are impregnated with oily matter apparently derived from the decomposition of the numerous fishes embedded in them; Silurian shales containing Graptolites, but destitute of plants, are not uncommonly “anthracitic,” and contain a small percentage of carbon derived from the decay of these zoophytes; whilst the petroleum so largely worked in North America has not improbably an animal origin.  That the fatty compounds present in animal bodies should more or less extensively impregnate fossiliferous rock-masses, is only what might be expected; but the great bulk of the carbon which exists stored up in the earth’s crust is derived from plants; and the form in which it principally presents itself is that of coal.  We shall have to speak again, and at greater length, of coal, and it is sufficient to say here that all the true coals, anthracites, and lignites, are of organic origin, and consist principally of the remains of plants in a more or less altered condition.  The bituminous shales which are found so commonly associated with beds of coal also derive their carbon primarily from plants; and the same is certainly, or probably, the case with similar shales which are known to occur in formations younger than the Carboniferous.  Lastly, carbon may occur as a conspicuous constituent of rock-masses in the form of graphite or black-lead.  In this form, it occurs in the shape of detached scales, of veins or strings, or sometimes of regular layers;[7] and there can be little doubt that in many instances it has an organic origin, though this is not capable of direct proof.  When present, at any rate, in quantity, and in the form of layers associated with stratified rocks, as is often the case in the Laurentian formation, there can be little hesitation in regarding it as of vegetable origin, and as an altered coal.