39 



which they have suffered, is considered and is assigned due weight. 

 Lapworth's general conclusions are that the Coal Measures originally 

 covered 11,000 square miles in the area he is considering. From 

 3,000 square miles they are known to have been denuded ; 

 1,700 square miles are exposed at the surface, 800 are buried but 

 have been tested or worked. Of the remaining 5,500 square miles, 

 probably more than half will be eventually reached and worked 

 within 4,000 feet of the surface of the ground. 



His work on foundations, borings, and water-supply is equally 

 sound, and is based as firmly on scientific principles, but naturally 

 very little of that is available for description. We may, however, 

 refer to a short paper on Underground Water-Supply in relation 

 to Brewing,* to his lectures on water, and to the work he 

 did for the Birmingham Corporation, for the South Staffordshire 

 Waterworks Company, and for Harrogate, Gloucester, Leicester, 

 and many Midland towns. 



2. The Geological Survey. 



The national work done by Lapworth in relation to Coal 

 Supply finds its parallel in his services on the Departmental Com- 

 mittee which considered the position and work of the Geological 

 Survey, as a result of which it was decided to modify and extend 

 the work of that body. For the Committee's Report he wrote an 

 account of the ' Uses of Geology and the Geological Survey,' in 

 which he brought out in a popular and easily understood form the 

 immense importance to the country and the Empire of a thorough 

 knowledge of the mineral resources on which their wealth and 

 prosperity are dependent. The most is made of the industrial 

 progress of the United States and Germany, and the relation of 

 so much of this to the mineral wealth of those countries and to the 

 knowledge of it which has been acquired and published either 

 officially or unofficially. But here, as so often elsewhere, he 

 insists that f" survey work whatever its economic applications 

 may be is in origin and spirit scientific." J" The first and fore- 

 most duty of the geological surveyor is to map the country, and to 

 map as correctly as may be up to the standard of the time, prompted 

 less by the desire for scientific discovery than by the desire for 

 scientific accuracy." He is confident that if only this duty be 

 conscientiously discharged there need be no doubt that economic 

 results of high value will inevitably follow. 



H. TEACHING WORK. 

 I. Students. 



In dealing with Lapworth's teaching work, first place must 

 be given to his College lectures, both those given to his regular 



* 60. f 59, p. 13- { 59, p. 14- 



