514 Geological Society . 



Mr. Tradescant Lay has also laid before us a notice of the ex- 

 istence of coal, or valuable lignite, in the island of Borneo : should 

 a large supply of it be found in this island, it may become a station 

 of inestimable value for effecting intercourse by steam between 

 China, India and Australia, and the great islands of the Malay Ar- 

 chipelago. 



It appears by recent accounts from Valparaiso, that an abundant 

 supply of good coal has lately been obtained at Talcahuano, with 

 which the steamer Peru has made a successful voyage to and from 

 Copiapo*. 



We have just learnt from Captain James Ross that good coal has 

 been discovered in Kerguelen's Land in the Southern Ocean. 



IGNEOUS ROCKS. 



We have, from the Rev. D. Williams, an account of a mass of trap, 

 intersecting the mountain limestone, red marl and lias at the W. end 

 of Bleadon Hill, on the Bristol and Exeter Railway. It resembles in 

 its character that of Hestercombe, on the flank of the Quantoc 

 Hills N.W. of Taunton, and is the first discovery of trap connected 

 with the line of elevation of the Mendip chain. This protrusion of 

 trap is attended by a remarkable fault, which brings the edges of 

 bent strata of lias into contact with those of mountain limestone. 

 Mr. Penistone has also supplied an instructive section of this cut- 

 ting. The nearest known trap rocks to the Mendips are that of 

 Hestercombe in the Quantoc Hills just mentioned, and that near 

 Tortworth and Berkeley. 



In a paper on the Isle of Madeira, Mr. Smith of Jordan Hill has 

 supplied, I believe, the first geological description of this island, the 

 structure of which has long been a desideratum to geologists. Little 



* As no more coal is in process of formation, and our national prosperity 

 must inevitably terminate with the exhaustion of those precious stores of 

 mineral fuel which form the foundation of our greatest manufacturing and 

 commercial establishments, I feel it my duty to entreat the attention of 

 the legislature to two evil practices which are tending to accelerate the 

 period when the contents of our coal-mines will have been consumed. 

 The first of these is the wanton waste which for more than fifty years has 

 been committed by the coal-owners near Newcastle, by screening and burn- 

 ing annually in never-extinguished j5ery heaps at the pit's moutli, more than 

 one million of chaldrons of excellent small coal, being nearly one-third 

 of the entire produce of the best coal-mines in England. This criminal 

 destruction of the elements of our national industry, which is accelerating 

 by one-third the not very distant period when these mines will be exhausted, 

 is perpetrated by the colliers, for the purpose of selling the remaining two- 

 thirds at a greater profit than they would derive from tlie sale of the entire 

 bulk unscreened to tlie coal-merchant. 



The second evil is the exportation of coal to foreign countries, in some 

 of which it is employed to work the machinery of rival manufactories, that 

 in certain cases could scarcely be maintained without a supply of British 

 coals. In 1839, 1,431, 8Gl tons were exported, and in 1840, 1,592,283 tons, 

 of which nearly one-fourth were sent to France. An increased duty on 

 coals exported to any country, excepting our own colonies, might afford 

 a remedy. See note on this subject in my Bridgewater Treatise, vol. i. 

 p. 535. 



