(dts 1) [ Jan. 
ORIGINAL ARTICLES. 
THE COAL RESOURCES OF GREAT BRITAIN. 
By Epwarp Hutt, B.A, F.G.8., of the Geological Survey of 
Great Britain. 
OF all sciences, none, perhaps, is so generally regarded as devoid of 
practical application as Geology. The employment of Astronomy in 
Navigation is known to all; the numberless uses of Chemistry in the 
Arts are self-evident ; Mineralogy is, of course, of value in detecting 
minerals; Physics, in laying down the principles of the electric tele- 
graph, and Mechanics, in the construction of machinery. But 
Geology ! “what can be the use of Geology ?” asks the world. If you 
answer that it has served to throw a flood of light on the past history 
of our globe, such a reply will not satisfy the utilitarian; and the 
“ practical” miner will say (though erroneously) that he can work his 
way in the earth in search of the minerals as well without, as with, 
a knowledge of Geology. To all such inquiries, as to the practical 
use of this science, let me proceed to give a final answer. Pre- 
mising that Geology is capable of application in the elucidation of a 
number of questions affecting our every-day life, which cannot be 
dwelt upon here, I may state that it is pre-eminently useful, and 
indispensable in enabling us to estimate the extent of those stores of 
mineral fuel which Providence has laid up in the strata of the earth 
for the service of man. 
The coal stored up in the bowels of the earth is limited in quantity, 
and, like the Sibylline Books, when once burnt, is irrecoverable; every 
day sees this store diminished; and just as the master of a house, at 
the approach of winter, wishes to ascertain the quantity of fuel in his 
cellar, so must it be a subject of moment to us as a nation—depending 
as we do so largely on the supply of coal for our manufacturing, 
commercial, and even political, pre-eminence,—to ascertain as far as 
possible, to what extent we may reckon on the continuance of this great 
source of motive power. Without the aid of the science of Geology, 
such an inquiry could only have ended in disappointment; with it we 
have all the materials necessary for the solution of the problem, as far 
at least as regards the actual quantity of coal itself. 
The strata, or “measures,” containing the beds of coal, belong, for 
the most part, to the great Carboniferous System of Rocks. They 
occur generally under two modes of arrangement; either as “basins ” 
