In this paper the author stated, that although there is sufficient evidence in the mechanical origin and organic contents of the beds (some of them of extraordinary thickness and extent), which form the coal-measures, to prove the pre-existence of much larger tracts of dry land, in connection with each other, than could possibly have been afforded by the older portions of the present countries; such proofs are altogether wanting when we endeavour to restore, in imagination, what might have been the probable extent of that land, the greater part of which may now lie buried beneath the ocean, or have since been covered by more recent deposits. It appears, however, to have been clothed with a luxuriant tropical vegetation, and sufficiently elevated to have given rise to the rivers and torrents, by which the materials for composing the coal strata had been carried down into the lakes or estuaries, where to all appearance they were deposited.