The Earth Made for Man, No. II [pp. 166-170]

THE LADIES' REPOSITORY.
almost a necessary element in human progress.
Certainly no one pretends to believe that the
physical features of the carboniferous series
was a development of one rock stratum out of
another. The old red sandstone surely did not
develop itself into limestone, nor the coal into
iron-stone. Their proximity must have occurred through the interposition of a Power that
can act independently of the natural connection
of things in tine and place. The succession
of the strata, however, is not of so much importance in the argument. The adaptation of
the carboniferous strata to an end, lying without the formation in which they are deposited,
is the main point to which we invite attention.
It is well ascertained that during the period
when the vegetation which produced the coalmeasures grew upon the valleys and accumulated in the basins of the surface, few land animals existed, and those mostly of the reptilian
family. The fact is exceedingly remarkable,
that during the existence of the most luxuriant
vegetation that ever covered portions of the
earth, there was no corresponding animal existence to grow and multiply on these exhaustless stores of vegetable food; and that during
the deposition of the most valuable ores and
minerals there was not a single being whose
wants could be met by them, or who could
appropriate them to subserve his purposes.
Now, if this immense vegetable product had
decayed, or had it been destroyed and mingled
with other material, as the superabundant vegetable productions have been before and since,
indications of a governing Mind, having reference to future wants, and depositing in one
series the material necessary for the inhabitants
of another, would not have been so apparent.
But this vegetation was not only produced
without corresponding herbivorous animals to
consume it, but it was preserved safe from decomposition and separated from admixture and
locked up in the crust of the earth, whence
man, who alone can appropriate, now exhumes
the hidden treasure. Nor this alone. The design is remarkably obvious in another point of
view. The material of the carboniferous series
is the only product of the earth on which human progress and development are greatly dependent, which can not be produced on the
surface in sufficient abundance to supply human
wants. In temperate latitudes, where human
industry and advancement are secured by the
greatest variety of subsidiary means-where
population becomes dense owing to the productiveness of the soil and the facilities for manufactures, the vegetable fuel of the surface alone
is not adequate to the purposes of human en
terprise, and of man's best social condition.
The fuel product of the surface must be removed in order to the purposes of cultivation;
and the increase of population in any temperate
region, and even in new countries recently
subjected to civilization, soon exhausts the
supply. Hence, from the nature of things, human energies could not be developed in the
best manner, nor the race advanced to the best
social position, without supplies of fuel below
the soil, which might supply the deficiency of
surface fuel. Without this deposit of fuel below the surface, human invention and industry
could not have been fully stimulated, the mineral resources of the earth could not have been
fully used, and mechanic arts and enterprises
would have been sadly impeded. But this deposit was made ages before man existed, and
required a whole epoch of the world's growth
for its formation and deposition.
The same adaptation is seen in the ores deposited in series of rocks anterior to the existence of man. There were no coexisting species
of things whose uses were subserved by the
ore-bearing strata. Saurians, pterodactyls, and
mastodons had no need for gold, and silver, and
copper, and iron, yet in their age. they were
created and deposited in the earth. The exertion of power by which they were located was
a useless expenditure of force, unless that power
was expended in view of the future when man
should exist upon the earth. The ore deposits,
vast as are their beds, have no end in connection with organized beings if man does not appropriate them to his own uses. These ores
have not only been deposited, but subsequently
to their location in the different strata, they
have been made accessible by convulsions from
below and influences operating from above.
And not only so, but these auxiliaries of human enterprise and industry are generally found
near together; it being almost invariably true
that coal and iron especially are found in close
proximity. The coal necessary to fuse the ores,
to propel machinery, and to work metals into
form, is deposited near the ore-bearing strata.
Thus the most important deposits which the
earth contains, and which, from their relations
to each other for economic purposes, need to be
together, are found located in the place and in
the form adapted to subserve the great economic
ends of human society. In the economy of nature as a whole, these deposits are arranged as
evidently in adaptation to human faculties as
the eye or the ear is adapted to the ends contemplated in fitting the faculties of the body to
external nature.
Such considerations, showing that series
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