1890.J on the Search for Coal in the South of England. 183 



worked in Westphalia, Belgium, FraDce, and Somersetshire. The 

 Westphalian coal-field coutains 294 feet of workable coal, distributed 

 in 117 seams; that of Mons, 250 feet, in 110 seams; and that of 

 Somerset, 98 feet, in 55 seams. The North French coal-field in 

 1887 yielded 7,119,633 tons, and gave employment at the pits to 

 29,000 men, and is rapidly increasing its output. 



It may be inferred that the buried coal-fields which await the 

 explorer in the North Downs are in all probability not inferior to 

 these. Godwin- Austen, in his memorable paper before the Geological 

 Society, in 1855, said that if one of these buried fields had once been 

 struck in South-eastern England, their exploration would be an easy 

 matter. It has been struck at Dover, and the necessary base is laid 

 down for further discoveries, which in all probability will restore to 

 South-eastern England the manufactures which have long since fled 

 away to the coal districts of the West and North, and which will put 

 off by many years the evil day when the energy stored up in the 

 shape of coal in these islands shall have been spent. 



[W. B. D.] 



WEEKLY EVENING MEETING, 



Friday, March 7, 1890. 



Sir James Crichton Browne, M.D. LL.D. F.R.S. Treasurer and 

 Vice-President, in the Chair. 



Francis Gotch, Esq. Hon. M.A. Oxon. B.A. B.Sc. 



Electrical Belations of the Brain and Spinal Cord, 



(Abstract.) 



(1) The lecturer first described the anatomical structure of the 

 nerve fibres and nerve cells found in the various parts of the 

 mammalian nervous system. He then drew attention to the only 

 physical indication of the passage of a nervous impulse along a 

 nerve fibre, viz. the development in each successive portion of the 

 nerve of an electrical effect. This electrical indication was then 

 demonstrated to the audience by connecting the surface and cross- 

 section of one portion of an isolated frog's nerve with the terminals 

 of a sensitive reflecting galvanometer, and exciting a series of nerve 

 impulses by applying rapidly recurring stimuli to a more distal 

 portion of the same nerve. 



