1866. | Geological Maps. 375 
Returning to the geological maps of England and Wales, it is 
noticeable that if we compare the more recent with the older 
editions, we shall find Sir Roderick Murchison’s view of the 
Permian age of the St. Bee’s and Corby sandstones adopted both by the 
Council of the Geological Society and by Professor Ramsay. ‘This 
is a matter of practical as well as scientific importance ; for if these 
sandstones be of Permian instead of Triassic age, the chance of 
coal occurring at a reasonable depth beneath them is very much 
increased, more especially as the Coal-measures themselves crop 
out and are extensively worked at Whitehaven, immediately to the 
north. 
The question of coal-supply, by the way, appears at last to be 
attracting the attention of public men; but whether any practical 
result will flow from this revived interest appears more than doubt- 
ful. ‘There are many considerations respecting the supply and 
consumption. of coal, to which Mr. Jevons did not attach sufficient 
weight, and which would cause us to measure England’s period of 
commercial supremacy more favourably than that author. Never- 
theless, there is sufficient cause for our striving to answer the 
question—By what means can we put off the day when our manu- 
factures will cease to be able to compete with those of cotton- and 
iron-producing countries? That things must come to that pass 
sooner or later is logically certain, and American manufactures may 
be able to compete with ours much sooner than we expect. 
Closely connected with this inquiry, though not a matter of 
such vital importance to the nation, is the probable duration of our 
coal-fields ; and in this view it is that the determination of those 
new districts where coal may still be wrought at moderate depths 
becomes such an important element in the solution of the problem. 
That the latent abundance of coal will not of itself ensure our 
commercial supremacy is sufficiently demonstrated by the present 
condition of America. The consideration of most consequence is 
the price at which the coal can be produced, and the relative 
abundance or scarcity is only one out of several elements which 
together determine the price. 
Facts are not wanting which tend to show that the area of our 
coal-fields will probably be very much increased within a few years. 
We have already mentioned one case of such a probable extension, 
and it may be worth while to give another, which is the present 
result of an attempt to ascertain whether workable coal-seams occur 
at moderate depths beneath the Lower Permian and Triassic sand- 
stones bordering the Poynton coal-field. This attempt is described 
by Mr. Hull in the memoir illustrating the quarter-sheets 81 N.W. 
and 81 §.W. of the Geological Survey-map of Great Britain ; 
and he states that a seam of coal three feet in thickness, and 
unknown in the Poynton district, was passed through by driving 
VOL. III. 20 
