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XXI. — A Description of some supposed Meteorites found in 

 Seams of Coal. By Mr. E. W. Binney. 



Read May 13, 1851. 

 I . 



The component parts of sedimentary rocks afford the 

 geologist most valuable data in assisting him to arrive at ■ 

 an estimate of the forces which have been in operation on 

 the earth's surface in very remote ages. Accordingly, we 

 find that the earliest cultivators of geology paid consider- 

 able attention to the conglomerates, sandstones, and slates 

 of the older deposits, as well as to the gravels, sands, and 

 clays of more recent formations. In a paper read by the 

 author before this Society on the 1st day of December, 

 1846, and printed at p. 148 of vol. viii. (new series) of the 

 Society's Transactions, the mechanical deposits of the coal- 

 measures of Lancashire were investigated at some length, 

 for the purpose of attempting to measure the intensity of 

 the currents of water which brought them to the places 

 where they are now found. At p. 166 is the following 

 extract: ^'As before stated, rough gritstones, containing 

 rounded pebbles of quartz, abound in the lower coal field; 

 whilst the middle and upper measures, reaching to a thick- 

 ness of 4,472 feet, as far as I know, have never yet afforded 

 a piece of mineral matter, in their sedimentary deposits, of 

 the size of a small pea. In two seams of coal, namely, 

 the Four Feet Mine at Patricroft, and another seam under 

 the same mine at Pendleton, I have obtained rounded 

 stones of several pounds in weight ; but as both these speci- 

 mens came from the neighbourhood of great faults, probably 



