Geological Collections. 187 



Fossil Bones found near Brighton The fossil remains of a large quadruped, 



supposed to belong to the genus Mastodon, have been recently discovered 

 ^bout four miles north of Brighton, a few feet below the surface. Among 

 them are two teeth, each weighing about eight pounds and a half. They 

 are, we understand, in the possession of Richard Weekes, Esq. of Hurst- 

 perpoint. 



Application of Electro-Magnetism to the Discovery of Metallic Veins. — In 

 the second part of the Philosophical Transactions for 1830 is a paper by 

 Mr Robert Ware Fox, on the Electro-magnetic properties of Metalliferous 

 veins in the mines of Cornwall. These effects he examined, by affixing 

 plates of copper to the wooden props of the galleries, in different parts of 

 the mine, in the direction of the veins. These plates were connected by copper 

 wire l-20th of an inch in diameter, including a galvanometer in the circuit, 

 and extending, in some cases, as far as 300 fathoms. The action on the needle 

 he found to vary generally with the quantity of ore, and the depth of the 

 station. Hence, from such experiments, material assistance may be derived 

 by the practical miner, in attempting to ascertain the amount of ore in par- 

 ticular veins, and the direction in which it is likely to occur in greatest 

 abundance. 



Red Sandstones of Berwickshire Mr Witham has published a paper on 



this formation in the second part of the Transactions of the Natural History 

 Society of Newcastle, from which we extract the following : — " The result, 

 then, of these repeated journeys over the ground, and repeated examinations, 

 has been to produce a firm conviction on my mind, of what seemed to me 

 at first more than problematical ; namely, that the red rocks in the neigh- 

 bourhood of Berwick, and also those seen upon the Tweed, the Black and 

 White Adder, and in other localities of this district, are not the new red 

 sandstone, but subordinate members of the mountain limestone series. 



" In a paper written by me, and published in the Annals of Philosophy, 

 July last, on the vegetable fossils found at Lennel-braes, near Coldstream, 

 I made use of the term ' Coal Formation,' there being beds of this com- 

 bustible matter in this series. By some this is looked upon as correct ; 

 still, as these rocks all lie below the coal field proper, I think it more correct 

 to class them as a mountain limestone group. South of Berwick, in this 

 formation, several good beds of coal are worked. How far the subordinate 

 members may prove fruitful in this useful commodity, must at present 

 remain matter of great uncertainty. 



" I cannot help now observing how cautious we ought to be in pronouncing 

 from mineralogical characters alone, the nature of any of these sandstones. 

 Nothing but exact observation upon position, and upon their alternation, 

 can justify our deciding upon the series to which they properly belong. The 

 similarity to each other, in hand specimens, between many of the rocks of 

 this formation and the proper new red sandstone, is often so striking, that 

 the most experienced observer, without such precautions, must be liable to 

 very gross mistakes. 



" By this investigation, two features are exhibited in these subordinate 

 beds of the above-named formation, which before were supposed only to 

 exist in much more recent deposits. 



" First, accompanying the usual fossils belonging to the class Vascular 

 Cryptogamia, viz. the SigiUarice, the Lepidodendrce, the Stigmaria, and 

 Equisetce, so common in these measures, you have in this field, imbedded in 

 shale, great abundance of Gymnospermous Phanerogamous plants. The 

 two localities already observed are seven miles apart, and I cannot entertain 

 a doubt, that upon the banks of the White and Black Adder, and many 

 other localities, were workings to be carried through these shale beds for 



