248 SILURIAN KOCKS IN nEETFOHDSHIRE. 



The second paper to which reference must be made is one by 

 Mr. Godwin- Austen, "On some further Evidence as to tlic Range 

 of the Palaeozoic Rocks beneath the South-east of England," read 

 before the Geological Section of the British Association at the 

 Sheffield meeting, 1879, and printed in extenso in the 'Report' of 

 that meeting (p. 227). In it Mr. Godwin-Austen quotes at some 

 length from a communication on the results of the boring at Messrs. 

 Meux's made by M. Dewalque to the Belgian Geological Society 

 in 1878, in which he stated that he thought the most probable 

 supposition Avas that the dip of the Upper Devonian beds was to 

 the south, and that therefore the coal formation might occur at a 

 short distance south of London and at a workable depth ; and 

 possibly, if the beds belonged to the extension of the southern basin 

 of Belgium, on the north as well as on the south, in which case 

 such a coal-basin might be as useless as the Belgian basin referred 

 to. In answer to some observations M. Dewalque also added : 

 *' Starting from the supposition that our (Belgian) old strata are 

 prolonged westward into England, and from the fact that Upper 

 Devonian strata occur under London, we are led to admit that the 

 band of Silurian slates of the Ostende boring must pass north of 

 London." 



Mr. Godwin- Austen then shows that this supposition has by the 

 boring at Ware been proved to be correct, the succession of the 

 Palaeozoic strata on the English side of the Channel, even into 

 the far west, being just what it is in Belgium and the north of 

 Erance ; and he then proceeds, from that and other considerations, 

 to draw the inference that the lower members of the true Coal- 

 measure formation may be expected to occur at about a quarter of 

 a mile to the south of the corner of Tottenham Court Road and 

 Oxford Street, and the upper or productive Coal-measures still 

 farther to the south. 



Accompanying the paper is a " Map to illustrate the evidence in 

 support of the continuity of productive Coal-measures beneath the 

 S.E. Counties of England." 



These deep well-borings in the neighbourhood of London are 

 thus contributing towards the solution of two problems of great 

 economic importance, — the existence or otherwise in the south-east 

 of England of productive Coal-measures at a workable depth ; and 

 the position of the Lower Greensand or of other permeable beds 

 sufficiently deep-seated and extensive to furnish the metropolis 

 with a large and never-failing supply of pure water. 



