Maybe not quite the right thread, but it's close:
Samuel Sharp, in referring in 1871 to a futile searh for coal near Northampton, remarked that one prominent man of means who supported the undertaking declared his utter lack of faith in geologists, and based his belief on the supposition "that where God has sent iron-ore he has also sent coal to smelt it."
The quote is from a book published in 1911; I have no idea who Samuel Sharp was.