638 The Search for New Coal-Fields in England [Mar. 17, 1916 



other particulars. At present it is open to any member of the com- 

 munity, after agreement with the owner of the land, to bore a hole 

 wherever he likes, as large as he pleases, as deep as he can go, and to 

 leave no record. There can be no object in keeping the site, the 

 diameter, or the depth of the hole secret ; in fact it is not possible to 

 do so. These particulars at least should be compulsorily registered, 

 and the site of an important boring permanently marked. . . . 



"It may be thought that a sufficient record is kept by the 

 Geological Survey. As a fact, it is only through courtesy or by 

 chance that we learn that borings are in progress. There are many 

 persons who feel strongly the desirability of records being preserved, 

 and make a point of informing us when boring operations are under- 

 taken ; but it happens too frequently that we hear of a borehole 

 having been made, too late for an adequate examination of the cores. 

 Others we never hear of, nor are the cores submitted to any compe- 

 tent geologist ; and in such cases records, if preserved at all, are apt 

 to be worse than useless. Any hard rock is liable to be called granite ; 

 Lower Palaeozoic shales, if they are black, become coal measures ; all 

 red rocks are New Red Sandstone. This is not the time for suggest- 

 ing the exact form of the machinery which should be created for the 

 preservation of boring records, but I take the opportunity of express- 

 ing to you my opinion that our methods of exploration are at present 

 happy-go-lucky and unworthy of our great mineral heritage." 



The matter remains as it was in 1905. Since that time many 

 deep boreholes have been put down, especially in Kent. The majority 

 of them were kept secret, and no access to the cores allowed to the 

 Geological Survey. For a time the only published account in 

 existence of some boreholes made by British companies was to be 

 found in a German periodical called " Gliickauf," published in Essen 

 (Xo. 27, July 6, 1912) ; of others the German account is still the 

 only available record. Truly our machinery must be deficient, when 

 information of such value can go so far astray. 



This, however, is a digression from my subject. It was the search 

 for, and exploring of, concealed coal-fields to which I particularly 

 wished to draw your attention, and incidentally to show that unless 

 useless expenditure of money is of no consequence, the search must 

 be conducted on scientific lines. 



[A. S.] 



