304 



NATURE 



{jfuly 25, 1889 



COAL AND TIN DISCOVERIES IN WESTERN 

 A USTRALIA. 



TWrR. HARRY P. WOODWARD, Government Geo- 

 -'■'-■■ legist for Western Australia, sends, under date 

 May 28, 1889, some interesting particulars of both coal 

 and tin discoveries in that colony. He writes : — 



" From Vasse I made for the Lower Blackwood River 

 Bridge, over the foot of the Darling Range, and so on to 

 the Donelly River. On the south coast, where a small 

 stream flows out, called the Fly Brook, coal has been 

 found of a very good quality, but there is no port nearer 

 than Albany or Vasse, and this latter is not a good one. 

 There seems to be a line of coal-bearing country between 

 the coast-range, which runs north and south from Cape 

 Leeuwin to Cape Naturalist, and the main highlands, tlae 

 southern continuation of the Darling Range ; much of it 

 covered with sand and swamps at the surface, but under 

 which I believe we shall find coal-measures which may, 

 in fact, extend west beneath Perth to the Irwin River, but 

 this can only be tested by deep borings. 



"There was nothing to be seen of the coal or rocks, as 

 they are boring with a 'jumping-drill,' which reduces 

 everything to mud, but there is one 5-foot seam and 

 several smaller, averaging 17 feet of coal in 200 feet of 

 rock. There are two or three outcrops in the bed of the 

 Creek of a much weathered but good coal, some of which 

 is highly bituminous. From Bridgetown I went to Albany, 

 and thence east 200 miles to the Phillip River, and saw 

 the Fitzgerald Coal-field. This is only brown coal or 

 lignite of no value, but there is some good-looking gold- 

 bearing country near it." 



Tin-Ore. — In reference to the tin discoveries, Mr. H. 

 P. Woodward writes : — 



" From Bunbury I went towards the Upper Blackwood, 

 to a place called Bridgetown, where tin has been found. 

 Little work has been done yet, but, as far as I am able to 

 judge, it seems to indicate the biggest thing of the kind 

 that has ever been found. One shaft, 18 feet deep, will 

 wash all the way down at about 4 or 5 pounds to the pan, 

 and they have not got to the bottom of it yet. The 

 richest works in other colonies are rarely more than 2 or 

 3 feet deep. Tin has been found at the surface, in the 

 sand, over an area of about 100 square miles, but no 

 sinking, except the one shaft, has yet been made ; and as 

 the surface is covered, either with sand or clay-ironstone, 

 the formation cannot be seen at all. The late Mr. 

 Edward T. Hardman suggested that tin would be found 

 here. The shaft shows a few inches of soil or alluvium 

 with gravel containing tin, where it was first found, 

 resting on hard masses of clayey ferruginous sandstone, 

 about I foot thick, then coarse quartz-grit with stream-tin 

 and tourmalines and a few 'colours' of gold. 17 feet 

 not gone through yet, as there was too much water, 

 about \ m weight being tin-ore." H. W. 



NOTES. 



The Committee appointed to consider the basis upon which 

 the grant of ;^i5,ooo a year for University Colleges in Britain 

 should be distributed have recommended that the grant should 

 be divided as follows : — To Owens College, Manchester, 

 ;^i8oo ; to University College and King's College, London, 

 ;^I700 each ; to Liverpool University College, ^1500 ; to 

 Mason College, Birmingham, the Yorkshire College, Leeds, 

 and Nottingham University College, ;i^i400 each ; to Bristol 

 University College, the Durham College of Science, Newcastle- 

 on-Tyne, and Firth College, Sheffield, ;^i20o each. The 

 Committee are of opinion that University College, Dundee, 

 should be dealt with in connection with the Scottish Universities, 

 and especially with the University of St. Andrews ; but they 

 recommend that it should for the present year have a grant of 

 ^500- 



A TESTIMONIAL is to be presented to Prof. Kennedy by his- 

 former students on the occasion of his resignation of the Chair 

 of Mechanical Engineering at University College, London. 

 A committee has been appointed to receive subscriptions, and 

 no doubt many persons will be glad to have this opportunity of 

 expressing gratitude for the profit they have derived from Prof. 

 Kennedy's instructions. The Chair from which he is retiring he 

 has held during the last fifteen years. 



In answer to a question put by Mr. Acland in the House of 

 Commons on Monday, Mr. W. H. Smith said the Government 

 were aware of the great interest taken by the country in technical 

 education, and the pressing importance of dealing with it. They 

 had been engaged during the previous few days in endeavouring 

 to find some solution of the difficulty which surrounds the ques- 

 tion in regard to elementary schools, but, he regretted to say, 

 without success. The Government therefore proposed to in- 

 troduce at once a measure dealing with the higher branch of the- 

 subject. 



At a general meeting of Welsh members, held at the 

 House of Commons on Tuesday, for the purpose of conferring 

 with Sir W. Hart-Dyke on the Intermediate Education (Wales) 

 Bill, the Vice-President of the Council announced that, pro- 

 vided all the amendments on the paper were withdrawn, the 

 Government were willing to accept an arrangement whereby the 

 Education Council to be constituted under the Bill should consist 

 of five members — three to be nominated by the County Councils, 

 and two by the Education Department. Were the meeting to 

 agree to this, then the Government would use their best efforts 

 to pass the measure into law before the end of the session. The 

 proposal thus made was debated at some length, and was finally 

 adopted. 



The half-yearly general meeting of the Scottish Meteoro- 

 logical Society was held yesterday in Edinburgh. The Council 

 of the Society presented its report, and the following papers 

 were read : — "Proposed Investigation of the Numbers of Dust 

 Particles in the Air at the Ben Nevis Observatory," by Prof. 

 Tait ; " The Distribution of Temperature over the Globe," by 

 Dr. Buchan. 



At the last meeting, this session, of the Royal Society of 

 Edinburgh, the Chairman, Prof. Chrystal, in closing the busi- 

 ness, said that, during the period, 86 papers had been read, of 

 which 21 had been in the department of natural philosophy, 16 

 in mathematics, 7 in chemistry, 2 in geology, 6 in zoology, 6 in 

 botany, 23 in physiology, 2 in astronomy, and 3 in meteorology. 

 A good number of these papers had come from the newly- 

 instituted laboratory in the College of Physicians, and he con- 

 gratulated that body on the public spirit manifested in the 

 opening of the laboratory, and on the excellent results that 

 followed. Eighteen new members had been added to the roll, 

 the average in the three previous years having been 36 ; and 7 

 ordinary and 2 honorary members had been lost by death. 



The floral fele of the Royal Botanic Society, held on the 

 15th inst., to celebrate the jubilee, is a fitting occasion to recall 

 the memory of the founder, Mr. Philip Barnes, who originated' 

 the idea, and planned and carried into execution the installation 

 of the Society. The faculty of creation is not given to every- 

 one. Due honour should therefore be given to those who, 

 endowed with it, use it for the interest of science and the public 

 good. 



At the Congress of Physiological Psychology, to be held in 

 Paris (August 5-10) the following subjects will be discussed : 

 muscular sense ; role of movements in formation of images ; is 

 the attention always determined by affecting states? ; statistical 

 study of hallucinations ; the appetites in idiots and imbeciles ;; 

 are there in insane persons motor impulsions independent o 



