May 1, 1SCG.] 



SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



Ill 



was observed by several persons to be surrounded 

 by afaiut ring of light, such as an atmosphere would 

 account for. Schroter too discovered what appeared 

 to him to be a faint crepuscular light, extending 

 beyond the cusps of the planet, into the dark hemi- 

 sphere. From micromctrical measures of the space 

 over which this light was diffused, lie considered the 

 horizontal refraction at the surface of the planet to 

 amount to 30' 31", or much the same as that of 

 the earth's atmosphere. Sir TV. Herschel confirmed 

 this as a whole, and more recently (May IS 49) 

 Miidler was able to do the same with the mere modi- 

 fication of making the amount greater by |th or 

 equal to 43T. Considering the difficulty of seeing 

 the planet, it maybe said that we know a good deal 

 about our neighbour. 



G. F. Chambers, F.ll.A.S. 



GEOLOGY. 



Observation's on Fossils. — While engaged 

 with more of my fellow workmen, in pursuing my 

 daily vocation in the mine, I came in contact with 

 a fault (commonly called by miners a trouble). As 

 the seam was broken, we had to return a consider- 

 able distance, and cut a passage through several 

 strata, before we could again reach the bed of coal. 

 I intend to give a few particulars of the fossils we 

 met with in the different strata through which we 

 passed, as they may be of interest to readers of S. G. 

 I examined some of them with much care as we 

 moved slowly and carefully along in our dark cavern. 

 A layer of blue stone, about two feet thick, which had 

 spread over the black shale, was the first that we had 

 to cut through. As soon as we commenced opera- 

 tions, I instantly observed the bed of two spines of 

 fish. They were both bent a little to one side, an oc- 

 currence which appears to be quite common, but the 

 cause of which may not be so easily explained. 

 Some beautiful specimens of fossil plants, such as 

 Cones, Sigillaria, Calamites, and a variety of ferns, 

 are generally found in this layer ; but in this place 

 I was much disappointed in finding nothing more 

 than a small piece of the inner bark of Sigillaria. 

 We passed through a mussel bed, the shells of 

 which were neither so fine nor so neatly formed as 

 some that I have seen from the same layer (or bed) 

 in other parts of the district. I may also say that 

 there is another bed of mussels met with about the 

 same distance below our coal bed, as this is above 

 it, both of which contain the same species, although 

 they must have lived and died some thousands of 

 years from each other. We came in contact with 

 another layer, which contained a large quantity of 

 coarse Calamites, stretching along the plane of stra- 

 tification for several yards ; and then we lost sight 

 of them, possibly never to see them again. A layer 



of thin blue clayey stone next formed our roof for a 

 short way on our journey, which was a complete 

 mass of fern-leaves. These were more clearly im- 

 pressed, and presented an appearance in the flora 

 line more magnificent than any I had previously 

 witnessed in the mine. What a great amount of 

 pleasure and delight any lover of botanical science 

 would have enjoyed in gazing upon the scene above, 

 as thousands over thousands of the leaves of this 

 fern fell upon the eye, as the rays of our candles 

 shone so brightly upon them. The dark subter- 

 ranean passage would have flown from his mind, 

 and with it the vague idea of impressions, and he 

 would at once have thought he was taking a ramble 

 along the surface, searching and gathering some in- 

 teresting species, where nothing but living ones were 

 growing. Again, I might say, what a world of 

 pleasure there was to me to think or reflect upon 

 the time they grew and flourished, and when great 

 unsightly beasts may have wandered among them in 

 search of food, and made the woods echo with their 

 wild and hideous roars ! Probably no bird of sweet 

 note cheered them in their wanderings, and no human 

 being sat and watched their unwieldy movements ! 

 But, back to my story. The substance on which 

 those leafy impressions were made, was so exceed- 

 ingly brittle, that, notwithstanding all my caution, 

 I could not procure more than one or two pieces 

 to grace my cabinet. We passed through several 

 other layers containing fossils, that seemed to have 

 flourished in a rich vegetation, and may have borne 

 the cold and chilly winds of autumn and the severe 

 frosts of winter, and adorned and beautified the 

 landscape in summer by their green foliage, and at 

 last have fallen to the earth and left their impres- 

 sions to be found and described by men of science 

 some thousands of years afterwards. Layers of a 

 hard and stubborn nature yielded to us, and opened 

 out their long-hidden treasures, and Nature revealed 

 without ink or pen her great and glorious work, 

 and showed with what magnificence she has planted 

 her impressions in the different leaves or layers of 

 her book. A little before we reached the coal-bed, 

 part of a spine of a fish was met with, which may 

 have been pitched from its own bed (black shale) by 

 the eruption that had torn asunder the solid layers 

 of strata. Lyell, speaking of the coal-field in Wales, 

 says, — " It has been observed that in the overlying 

 shales of the beds of coal in Wales, no Stigmaria 

 plants have been found ; yet intheunderclays which 

 form the floor, on which one hundred seams of coal 

 rest, Stigmaria appears to abound." All the upper 

 shales through which we passed presented no traces 

 of Stigmaria. A few feet below our coal-bed, a blue 

 clayey layer of stone is found, which contains nothing 

 but the leaf-like rootlets of Stigmaria, branching out 

 in all directions, and making it at times a very pleas- 

 ing and interesting scene. — John, Sim (Miner), West 

 Cramlington. 



