222 GEOLOGY AS AN ECONOMIC SCIENCE 



the Geological Survey, in the process of making its 

 detailed maps, besides gathering material for 

 immediate use, of necessity collects a vast amount 

 of information which has economic value of a 

 potential kind. 



What has been said refers more particularly to 

 surface-observations, but in our mining-districts 

 underground work permits of facts being collected 

 which have an obvious and highly important 

 bearing on the economy of, at least, the area 

 concerned, if they are not of wider application. 



In the majority of cases colliery-owners, water- 

 engineers and others who realise the debt they owe 

 to geological science gladly permit geologists to 

 record and make use of the scientific results of their 

 excavations, but with the inadequate machinery 

 that exists at present for the collection of such de- 

 tails, much valuable information is inevitably lost. 

 The geological knowledge of our country has 

 now reached such a state of efficiency that further 

 advance with regard to the understanding of the 

 structure of our coal-fields, and more particularly 

 of their extensions, is largely dependent on explora- 

 tion by boring and the examination of the rock- 

 cores so obtained. In this connexion it is a striking 

 anomaly that any individual is permitted to open 

 quarries and make excavations, to sink shafts and 

 make bore-holes, and to undertake work of similar 

 character, without placing on record any of the 

 scientific results that may be obtained, or even 



