MR. E. W. BINNEY ON SOIHE SUPPOSED METEORITES, &c. 307 



they may have been brought to the places where they were 

 found by other causes than currents of water. They, how- 

 ever, are interesting, and difficult to account for, being well 

 rounded. Their composition is the same, though found 

 in different seams and at different places, being of a hard 

 crystalline quartz, more resembling gannister than any 

 other stone in the carboniferous series. The outsides of 

 both stones are well coated with a covering of coal, shewing 

 that they must have lain long in the places where they 

 were found." 



Ever since the reading of the above paper, I have devoted 

 considerable time and trouble in attempting to obtain evi» 

 dence of more stones having been found in coal seams — of 

 course, by stones I don't mean any of those aggregations 

 of iron pyrites and ironstone which are so frequently met 

 with in coal seams, but foreign masses of stone, which must 

 have been introduced into the coal when it was in a soft 

 state, and not precipitations from water, or segregations 

 from the substance of the coal itself, where they had pre- 

 viously existed either in solution or admixture. All my 

 enquiries, however, resulted in obtaining no proof of more 

 specimens having been found in coal seams except the one 

 next alluded to.* In the Mining Journal of the 9th day 

 of November, 1850, appeared the following paragraph: "A 

 large pebble of crystalline or primary limestone,! was found 

 imbedded in the solid coal at the Rhydgaled Colliery, near 

 Mold, on Monday the 4th instant. It is supposed to be 



* Since this paper was read, the author has had an opportunity of 

 asking W. E. Logan, Esq., F.R.S., director of the geological survey of 

 ^Canada, a gentleman of as great practical acquaintance with coal fields as 

 any geologist of the day, and one who has investigated coal-measures in 

 nearly all parts of the world, if he ever, in his great experience, had met 

 with rounded pebbles of stone in the middle of coal seams, and that gen- 

 tleman declared that he had not met with a single instance — E. W. B. 



f This stone, as will be seen by the analysis hereinafter given, is not 

 a limestone, but nearly pure alica. 



