ALTERNATION OF GENERATIONS IN PLANTS.'— By Mb. P. MORING. 



In the course of this lecture, which was g'iven 

 on March 18, 190H, at very short notice, owing* to 

 Mr. Burr being unable to g-ive his lecture owing 

 to illness, the life cycle of a typical fern was 

 described, the two generations, each an inde- 

 pendentplant— the sporopliyte andgametophyte — 

 ware examined in detivil. It was shown that the 

 sporophyte was the dominant type in this life 

 cycle. Comparisons were then made with the 

 fungi and algte where there might be possible 

 alternation, and in liverworts and mosses. In 

 these groups the gametophyte is the dominant 

 type, the sporophyte being insignificant or para- 

 sitic, or not found at all. In Selaginella, Cycads 

 and Pinus the comparative life cycle was traced 



and compared. In these the sporophyte is the 

 dominant generation. In the angiosperms the 

 gametophyte is almost entirely suppressed. 



Thus, in the lower orders of plants to the mosses 

 we have the dominant type the gametophyte, 

 which in some cases becomes foliar and is pro- 

 vided with a weak stem. From the ferns upwards 

 a reversal takes place and the plant, as we usually 

 know it, becomes the sporophyte, to the suppres- 

 sion of the plant gametophyte, which is at least 

 only represented by a disorganised cell. From the 

 comparison of those life cycles it is inferred that 

 the origin of land plants was from an amphibious 

 ancestor, which also originated from an aquatic 

 type. 



"THE DISCOVERY OF THE KENTISH COALFIELD."— 

 By Mr. MALCOLM BURR, B.A., F.O.S. 



The promised lecture on " The Discovery of the 

 Kentish Coalfield," by Mr. Malcolm Burr. B.A.. 

 A.R.S.M.. P.G.S., M.I.M.E. {postponed from a 

 previous meeting by reason of the indisposition 

 of Miss Burr) was delivered at a meeting on April 

 lo. 1908. Mr. Sidney Harvey, F.C.S., F.I.C., 

 presided, and othei's present included Dr. Vipan, 

 Mr. Walter Cozens, Mr. A. Lander, Mr. Cuthbert 

 Gardner, Mr. Percy Moring (Secretary of the 

 Dover Society), Mr. H. Biggleston, Mr. E.Colthup, 

 Mr. W. E. Goulden, Mr. Leeming, Mr. Ernest 

 Hook, and many others. 



Mr. BuiT, who is the engineer in charge of the 

 colliery works, opened with an elaborate and lucid 

 geological histoiy, tracing the history of the 

 various formations of strata from the time when 

 the country was covered by the Devonian Sea. He 

 described the probable method of the formation of 

 coal seams from the burying in, ages ago, of vast 

 forests, the decayed remains of which were 

 subjected to enormous pi-essiu-e from the deposits 

 formed above them, and explained the probable 

 reasons why at places it was possible to reach the 

 coal measures, while at othei"S they wore too 

 deeply buried. At Nethcrfield, near Battle, 

 Sussex, some years ago a boring was put down to 

 a depth of two thousand feet, but even at that 

 depth the base of the modern rocks had not been 

 reached. In 1M7U the matter was discussed at a 

 meeting of all the greatest geologists of the dxiy 

 and the conclusion then arrived at was that 

 boring in the valley of the Stour South of Canter- 

 bury would probably be more successful. Nothing 

 more happened for a good many years, but in issii 

 a shaft was sunk at the Shakespeare CliflF. 

 Dover, for the construction of a Channel 

 Tunnel. That work w;is subsequently stopped by 

 Parliament, but a boring was afterwards made 

 and four years later coal w;is struck. It was not, 

 however, until 1.S9H — forty years after Godden 

 Austin published his famous paper — that ti.^> 

 matter was taken seriously in hand. The boring 



at Braboiu-ne hit upon an anticline — they struck 

 upon the sldpe of the sti-ata formation and brought 

 up Devonian rock. That was a clue that they had 

 got too far in some direction and stopped explora- 

 tion to the westward. They then started further 

 to the eastward and were investigating now in 

 Romney Marsh and in Essex. Coal had been 

 found at Lowestoft and there seemed to be no 

 doubt that this was part of the Midlands coal 

 field and possibly of that of South Yorkshire. 

 Roughly speaking, there were about S(X) feet of 

 chalk shown by the borings between Canterbury 

 and Dover, and this did not take them more than 

 about half way down to the coal measures. Mr. 

 BuiT showed specimens of the core brought 

 up by the boring tools and pointed to the 

 differences between the marine and the 

 fresh wat^'r rocks between the chalk and the 

 coal me;i3ures. Specimens of the coal obtained 

 from the Kent borings had been examined by one 

 of the leatling paleo-botanists and his decision 

 was that its constituents were of the same age as 

 those in the coal from some of the most important 

 pits in South "Wales and Lancashii'e, while it was 

 also similar to much of that from the Pas de 

 Calais Coalfields. At Eopei-sole, Barham, a depth 

 of 2713 feet was reached, but no workable seams 

 were reached ; investigation had also been carried 

 on in the Alkham Valley; and about 1905 another 

 party started boring near the Canterbiiiy gate 

 of the Waldershare estate. There they had 

 p;vssed throiigh a great nximber of seams, and Mr. 

 Burr exhibited core taken from a depth of three 

 thousjind feet. Another borehole at Fredville 

 had also proved good seams ; boring was going 

 on at the present time at Barfrestone ; and at 

 Woodnesborough another was started a month 

 ago and was now down six hundred feet. At 

 Goodnestone work was also in progress ; he was 

 not permitted to tnU them the I'esults, but he 

 could assure them that they were exceedingly 

 interesting. 



