238 



NATURE 



\yan. 16, 1879 



Again, at a general meeting of the Scotch Society in 

 July, 1877, the Chairman, in his address, renewed his 

 reference to the desirability of a station on, at all events, 

 Ben Nevis, and mentioned that Lord Abinger, the pro- 

 prietor, having consented to the erection of a hut for the 

 purpose, "the Society's Council would readily establish 

 the station if it only had the requisite funds." Testi- 

 mony to the value of high stations has in like manner 

 been given by Mr. Robert Scott, the Secretary of the 

 Government Meteorological Department. 



Mr. Scott was the first and principal witness examined 

 before the recent Government Meteorological Commis- 

 sion, and his opinion on the point of high-level stations is 

 shown by the following questions and answers : — 



Q. Has the Meteorological Committee felt it desirable 

 to have stations at some higher levels in Great Britain ? 



A. Certainly they have. 



Q. Have they thought of any particular plan ? 



A. They have had no money for it. 



Q. Have they thought of any place if they had money ? 



A. I may mention Settle, because there is a telegraph 

 station there, a high-level station, about 1,000 feet above 

 the sea, on the borders of Yorkshire and Lancashire. If 

 ever we had 30/. a year to spare, we should like to have 

 a station there. It is found in cold weather that warm 

 weather sets in at the upper stations perhaps one or two 

 days before it comes down. 



When such are the opinions which have been expressed 

 and brought before the country by authorities deserving 

 of respect and attention, it is hoped that the establish- 

 ment of high-level meteorological stations will be no 

 longer delayed. It is true that none of the moun- 

 tains in the United Kingdom are so high as in the other 

 countries above enumerated where high-level stations 

 have been and are about to be established. But on the 

 other hand the British Isles occupy a position more im- 

 portant for meteorological purposes than almost any 

 other European country, inasmuch as their westward 

 position enables British meteorologists to obtain the 

 earliest information regarding the great storms which 

 sweep across the Atlantic, and of which warning as soon 

 as possible should be given in Europe. Great Britain's 

 duty, interest, and credit as a nation concur therefore in 

 this matter ; and it is hoped that measures will soon be 

 taken to establish these high-level stations in the three 

 divisions of the United Kingdom, unless, in fact, we are 

 prepared to see the problems presented by the phenomena 

 of the higher air worked out in other countries. 



COAL 



Coal : its History and Uses. By Professors Green, Miall, 

 Thorpe, Riicker, and Marshall, of the Yorkshire Col- 

 lege. Edited by Prof. Thorpe. (London : Macmillan 

 and Co., 1878.) 



I SHALL be much surprised if this composite little 

 volume fails to attract the attention of many students 

 of nature, but especially of such persons as are practically 

 connected with coal, either as students, as proprietors, or 

 as workers. The five professors of the Yorkshire College 

 of Science who have combined to produce the volume 

 are men thoroughly competent to deal with the portions 

 of the subject which they have severally undertaken, and 



the result of their labours is a book at once picturesque 

 and scientific. 



Prof. Green commences the work by two chapters on 

 the geology of coal. After dealing with the general 

 phenomena of the deposition of sandstones, shales, and 

 limestones, he proceeds to examine the special features 

 of coal and the probable conditions attending its forma- 

 tion. In doing so he grapples with the peculiar questions 

 connected with the well-known lamination of coal and the 

 alternation of the brittle, lustrous, bituminous layers with 

 those of the so-called mother-of-coal or mineral charcoal. 

 This subject of course raises the question of the origin of 

 these two elements — a question which still presents 

 curious and unsolved difficulties. The mineral charcoal 

 chiefly consists of cubical fragments of bark mingled with 

 some vascular or woody elements of plant-stems. Prof. 

 Green correctly points out that " the woody character of 

 this mother of coal is palpable even to the unaided eye," 

 further adding " that it is possible, in some cases, to say 

 what the plant was of which they (/.^., the fragments of 

 charcoal) originally formed a part." I am afraid that 

 this latter feat is not easily performed. The vascular 

 tissues which we chiefly find in this mineral charcoal 

 are not those seen in Lepidodendron and in Sigil- 

 laria. The absence of the latter structures is one of the 

 facts not easily explained. The vessels forming the 

 ligneous zones of these two representatives of the 

 carboniferous flora are always of the barred or pendo- 

 scalariform type. The dominant element in the mine- 

 ral charcoal consists of the various modifications of 

 cellular tissue found in the bark of these, and many other 

 unrecognisable, plants, but the vessels are mainly of the 

 reticulated type. They closely resemble the vascular 

 elements found in some Calamites, in most Asterophyl- 

 lites and Sphenophylla, and in all the known Lygino- 

 dendra. Whether the barred vessels of the Lycopodea- 

 ceous plants did not form a part of the vegetable mass 

 converted into coal, or whether, being there, they were, 

 bituminised more readily than others, is not easy to say. 

 I am inclined to believe in the latter explanation ; any- 

 how, I have as yet failed to find a solitary fragment of 

 one of these barred vessels in the mineral charcoal. A 

 fragment of American coal, sent to me many years ago 

 by that distinguished microscopist, Dr. Bailey, of West 

 Point, consisted wholly of numerous layers of similar 

 reticulated vessels which had not undergone bituminous 

 disintegration. The laminae of mineral charcoal alter- 

 nate with those of the more bituminised coal with great 

 irregularity ; in some specimens they are distributed in 

 about equal quantities, in others thick bituminous layers 

 separate the charcoal layers very widely. Whatever the 

 agency may have been that brought about the result, this 

 lamination shows that, in most instances, there have 

 been irregularly recurring periods when innumerable, 

 perfectly carbonised, but only partially disorganised, 

 fragments of certain decaying stems were strewed over 

 the surfaces of those portions of the vegetable mass 

 which became converted into the more bituminous 

 laminae of the coal. In other cases I find no difficulty in 

 seeing the charcoal intermingled with, and actually under- 

 going conversion into, the bituminous condition, whilst 

 interposed layers of perfect macrospores have under- 

 gone no such conversion. The charcoal fragments are 



