September 1, 1886.] 



♦ KNO^A^LEDGE ♦ 



329 



(4) the eye, which is inside the brain. In all other animals 

 which have eyes the retina or sensitive part is developed 

 from the outer skin, and its outgrowth from the brain in 

 vertebi-ates is ingeniously accounted for by Professor Ray 

 Lankester on the theory that the original vertebi'ate was a 

 ti-ansparent animal, through every part of whose clear skin 

 the light passed and acted on the tissues of the inlying 

 brain. But as the skin became tougher and denser, and 

 functions consequently more localised, the eye-bearing part 

 of the brain had to grow outwards till skin-vesicle and 

 brain-vesicle met, and the eye was formed at the surface. 



Similar as are the larvre of the tadpole and the sea- 

 squirt, they diverge at later stages. While the one advances 

 from the fi.sh-like form to the amphibian, exchanging gills 

 and tail for kings and limbs, and, in fine, epitomising in its 

 development the series of forms through which its ancestors 

 passed, the other fi.xes itself by the suckers on its head to 

 stone or plant. Tail, notochord, nerve-cord, and eye dis- 

 appear, the brain remains small, the throat enlarges, the 

 gill-slits increase in number, the skin becomes hard and 

 leathery, and the eyeleas, footless thing sinks, as its manu- 

 facture of cellulose max'kedly shows, well-nigh to the plant 

 level, its vegetating mode of nutrition sealing its degenera- 

 tion. 



The tailless amphibian frog and its allies are, however, 

 not among the earliest vertebrates, which without doubt 

 wei-e aquatic, and the more complete evidence of the near 

 relationship of the sea-squirt to them must be sought in com- 

 parison between it and the lowest known vertebrate, a small 

 tish called the lancelet or amphioxus. This comparison will 

 be made in the next chapter, with which our survey of past 

 and present life-forms will end. 



COAL. 



By W. Mattieu Williams. 



^saDMlNG now to the practical part of the sub- 

 ject — the basiness of coal-mining — the firat 

 step is to find the coal. 



In those cases where the .seam is known 

 to exist, has been worked in the neighbour- 

 hood, this t)ut>/ be easy enough, though it 

 does not always follow that it iimst be. I 

 am sorry to be obliged to say that sei-ious 

 frauds are sometimes perpetrated by trading on the gulli- 

 bility of investors, who are led to believe that because a 

 seam of coal has been successfully worked in certain ground 

 we will call A, and at another place a mile or two away 

 which we will call C, that therefore the same seam exists 

 in the intermediate ground B. This may be the case or it 

 may not. 



That it may be the case is obvious enough ; that it may 

 not demands some explanation. I have already described 

 ordinary faults, where a down-throw or an up-throw compels 

 the miner to seek for the lost seam either above or below 

 the present workings, and which he finds by ascending or 

 descending to a height or depth corresponding to the amount 

 of displacement. But it must be remembered that coal- 

 seams are usually more or less inclined from the horizontal, 

 in some cases have been considerably tilted, and that a fault 

 may be due to such tilting. It is easy to understand that 

 such a tilting up-thi-ow may expose the broken face of the 

 coal-seam to the air, raise it above the general level of the 

 surface at the time being, as part of an elevated ridge or 

 hill. Subsequent denudation would cut away this elevated 

 portion of the coal-seam altogether, leaving the lower con- 

 tinuation of the inclined strata still below, as well as the 



down-thrown portion on the other side of the fault. Thus 

 in subsequent geologi&il ages would be found a strip of land 

 barren of coal coi-responding with this denuded and reburied 

 ridge, but with the coal-seam on both sidas of it. This 

 state of things is not at all uncommon in the much broken 

 coal-fields of North Wales. Where it occms the Welsh 

 colliers say that " the coal has gone up to the sky," especially 

 if the " farewell rock," the millstone grit, is exposed. 



I describe this particularly in order to warn speculative 

 investors against the fraud above alluded to. It is perpe- 

 trated by purchasing an old abandoned colliery and the 

 land adjoining at its depreciated value, then issuing a 

 prospectus describing the previous prosperity of the colliery, 

 the quantity of coal formerly raised therefrom per acre, and 

 the remaining acreage of unworked land. A company is 

 "floated," the water pumped out from the old workings, new 

 workings opened just where a little coal was purposely left 

 ne;xr to the known fault, shares are run up, the projectors 

 sell theirs, and presently the end of the remnant of coal is 

 reached and df scribed as an unexpected fault. In the 

 worst cases another pit is sunk farther on beyond the fault, 

 and thus the remaining capital of the new company is 

 exhausted. The reopening of an old colliery should never 

 be attempted without the most exhaustive inquiry into the 

 reasons why it was abandoned, and the most convincing 

 proof of the honesty of the experts employed to make the 

 inquiry. An old haid who.se name has appea.red on the 

 prospectus of previous failures should be especially mis- 

 trusted. 



Readers may desire to know how a shrewd and honest 

 adventurer, who has discovered, or thinks he has discovered, 

 an unsuspected coal-seam, or a vein of metal ore, is able to 

 turn his discovery to account when the land belongs to 

 somebody else. Does he keep his discovery a secret and 

 buy the land by a roundabout process, or under false pre- 

 tences, or is there any fair and recognised mode of proceed- 

 ing ? There is, and it is as follows : — 



He goes to the landlord, tells him that he has reason to 

 believe that he can find workable coal or ore on a certain 

 part of the landlord's estate, and will undertake the 

 co.st and risk of finding and working it on the usual 

 conditions, these being that the landlord shall give 

 the adventurer a " tack-note," or take-note, which Ls 

 an agreement for a lease with exclusive right to work the 

 minerals specified therein on the payment to the landlord of 

 a certain roi/alli/ per ton of material rai.sed. But the busi- 

 ness of proving the coal, sinking the pit, and opening the work- 

 ings occupies some time — two or three or more years — during 

 which the adventurer and his associated capitalists are earn- 

 ing nothing for tuemsehes nor for the landlord, but j'et are 

 operating upon the surface, doing it some damage as pro- 

 vided for the surface-rights included in the take-note. In 

 order to hasten this preparatory stage and secure the in- 

 terests of the landlord in case of abandonment of the en- 

 terprise, a specified amount of " dead-rent " is charged 

 during this period, with a proviso that if the coal is finally 

 worked the total amount of dead-rent that has been paid 

 shall be credited against the first royalties, no cash for 

 royalties being paid until they have amounted to the already 

 paid dead-rent. 



It sometimes happens that an illiterate poor collier is the 

 discoverer or supposed discoverer of the unsuspected seam. 

 He gets the take-note directly or by the aid of a friend, and 

 in some cases sells it for a respectable sum. A case of 

 this kind came under my notice in Flintshire ; the take- 

 note was first .sold by the collier for 3lJ0Z. to a man of 

 means, who resold it to a wealthy company for 1,000Z., or 

 thereabouts. 



The mode of proving a coal-seam is first to sink a bore- 



