252 ON THE GEOLOGY AND MINrNG, &C. 



Stone hills terminate, near Dudley. This is a species of basaltic 

 larva, and takes various forms according to the mode in which it 

 was cooled after ejection from its deep sources. The only purpose 

 of utility to which it has been applied, is that of paving-stone ; and 

 having bsen usually procured from the quarries near the village of 

 Rowley Regis, it has received the vernacular denomination of 

 Rowley Rag. When met with in the form of dykes and veins, it 

 is called by the miners " green rock." It is extremely hard, is 

 slightly affected by the magnet, and consists of about five parts of 

 silex, three of alumina, and two of oxide of iron. At Rowley, and 

 Barrow-hills near Dudley, it occasionally exhibits the vertical 

 columnar form ; and at Pouck-hill, near Walsall, the columns are 

 singularly well defined, but their position is nearly horizontal. The 

 present state of the basaltic hills presents many picturesque group- 

 ings, of which the lecturer was able to point to some striking in- 

 stances in large coloured views of scenery at Barrow and Pouck- 

 hills. V 



In reference to the probable continuance of the supply of coal, he 

 ventured to offer some calculations on the state of the mines ; infer- 

 ring from the immense quantities consumed — probably not less than 

 the entire produce of an acre per week in the mining and iron 

 works alone; — from the separated position and inconsiderable thick- 

 ness of the " ten yard" measures in certain situations, and from the 

 problematical result of the bold experiments now carrying on by 

 Lord Dartmouth at Westbromwich, that the coal basin is in reality 

 circumscribed, and its contents not so inexhaustible as some writers 

 have deemed it to be, or as, from the present unrestricted, perhaps 

 wasteful, consumption of an unrenewable store, would seem to be 

 expected. 



In conclusion, the attention of the auditors was briefly called to 

 the reflections naturally suggested by the examination of such a 

 page in the volume of Nature as had been opened in these lectures, 

 and in which the observer could not fail to perceive that, by the 

 operation of what are called laws of Nature and natural causes, 

 several useful materials, closely allied in their adaptation to the 

 service of man, hav(, first been successively deposited within a pre- 

 scribed area, and then removed and disturbed so as to render them 

 accessible to human industry ; thereby, as in every section of the 

 works of Nature, exhibiting proofs of benificent intention, as well 

 as design, intelligence, and power on the part of the creating mind. 



