PRACTICAL GEOLOGY. 417 



the active share he took in the practical applications 

 of geology. His labours in this department were mani- 

 fested in two different directions. In the first place, he, 

 more than other geologists of his day, insisted on the 

 necessity of a knowledge of geological structure in deal- 

 ing with the question of water-supply. From his early 

 communication to the Institute of British Architects 

 [16] down to his pamphlet on the Oxford water-supply 

 [ill], an interval of thirty-five years elapsed, during 

 which he came to be regarded as the leading authority 

 on this subject in England, and his co-operation doubt- 

 less added much to the value of the Report of the 

 Royal Commission on Water - Supply, issued in 1869 

 [67]. It is to be regretted that the maps prepared 

 by him for this Report were never published. In the 

 second place, his early devotion to the coal - field of 

 Coalbrookdale gave him a knowledge of our Carbon- 

 iferous System, arid an interest in its development, 

 which he turned to good use in later years, when he 

 acted as a member of the Royal Commission on Coal. 

 Not the least valuable part of that important and 

 voluminous work was supplied by him in his papers 

 on the quantity of unwrought coal in the coal-fields 

 of Somerset, and on the probability of finding coal 

 under the newer formations of the South of England 

 [75]. In the last-named paper he gave a resume of 

 all that had been ascertained up to the year 1866 

 regarding the possible extension of the Coal-Measures, 

 and gave good grounds for supporting the conclu- 

 sions of Godwin - Austen, and for believing in "the 

 high probability of the existence of basins [of coal] 

 under the Secondary and Tertiary formations of the 

 South of England." This opinion, and the reasoning 

 on which it was based, have recently acquired fresh 



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