1380 
so that the birds may get at them. A good dressing of gas or hot 
lime towards the end of the fallow would be useful, and would no 
doubt kill any which were left in the soil, as they would be much 
weakened by their long fast. Laying straw, spent tan, &c., under 
strawberry plants when the fruit is ripening, cannot but encourage 
these creatures. In greenhouses they may be trapped in the 
manner recommended for catching W oodlice. 
XXI. 
ON THE PROBABILITY OF FINDING COAL IN KENT, 
BY 
GEORGE DOWKER, F.G.S. 
READ DECEMBER 8, 1887. 
Mr. Dowker, in this paper, alluded to the boring in search of 
coal strata now going on at Dover, and remarked that the large 
consumption of coal in England, together with the quantity 
annually exported, had led to serious apprehensions that the 
avaiable supply in this country might be exhausted; and many 
eminent Geologists had been examining the question, with a view to 
find out fresh sources. 
He drew attention to a remarkable paper, by the late Mr. Godwin 
Austen, read before the Geological Society in 1845, accompanied by 
amap. His observation and theoretical considerations led him to 
believe that: the coal measures of Northern France and Belgium 
were continued beneath the secondary beds of the 8.E. of England ; 
and he showed, upon well considered theoretical grounds that a 
large portion of the present coal fields of England, France, and 
Belgium, were once continuous, and that the present coal fields 
were mere fragments of a great original deposit ; and inferred that 
a line of disturbance forming the great anticlinal of the Ardennes, 
by which the Belgian coalfield had been tilted up and brought to 
the surface was continuous to the Mendips and Somerset coalfields. 
And tracing out the great basin in which these coal beds were 
situated, drew a hypothetical line passing under the London Basin, 
in which he supposed they might be found not far beneath the 
surface. - 
Mr. Dowker then traced out by deep well sections of Kentish 
Town, Harwich, Calais, Tottenham Court Road, Richmond, and 
others, proving that in all these cases the secondary beds beneath 
