470 



NATURE 



{April II, 1872 



Messrs. Wateri.ow and Sons, of 66, London Wall, an- 

 nounce that the invention of an entirely new method of producing 

 a number of copies of the same manuscript without the use of 

 inl<, by a very simple process which they term printing by elec- 

 tricity, and to which we have already referred, may now be seen 

 in operation on their premises. 



■ We have received a circular from the Secretary of the Phila- 

 delphia Philosophical Association, containing a statement of its 

 leading principles, and an outline of the method pursued in 

 carrying them out. These principles are stated to be : — i. That 

 force is persistent ; 2, That all knowledge is relative ; 3, That 

 philosophy is the synthesis of the doctrines and methods of 

 science ; 4, The critical attitude of philosophy is not destructive, 

 but constructive ; not sceptical, but dogmatic ; not negative, but 

 positive. The Association appears to have been established in 

 November 1 87 1, and proposes to select a number of suitable 

 papers, or parts of papers, for publication m a Quarterly Journal. 



A correspondent at Brighton describes a solav phenomenon 

 visible on the afternoon of April 8, at 5.35 P.M. The sun being 

 just within the upper part of a mass of light clouds, through 

 which it shone with a white glare, there appeared a distinct belt 

 of colours, in order and apparent width exactly like those of an 

 ordinary rainbow, but apparently flattened above. Half a 

 minute afterwards a second belt appeared, equally bright, and 

 with no interval between the two. At the same time a fainter 

 lielt appeared to the right, but not forming a part of the same 

 circle as the others. The three were visible together, but did 

 not last above a minute. After the unusual appearance was first 

 noticed, the sky above was tolerably clear, with a few light upper 

 clouds. After the prismatic lines had faded, there was that 

 diffused white glare round the sun which is commonly said to 

 l)etoken windy weather. 



There is now every prospect that the getting of coal by 

 machinery will be more generally adopted than hitherto. At 

 present it has only been adopted at a few places, but a new 

 machine, patented by Messrs. Gillott and Copley, has just been 

 tested at tlie Wliarncliffe Silkstone Colliery, near Barnsley, in 

 the presence of a number of mining engineers from various parts 

 •of the kingdom, and with most satisfactory results. In 136 

 minutes a bank of coal, 58 yards long and four feet eight inches 

 thick, was cut to a depth of three feet one inch. The quantity 

 of coal so cut would be about 80 tons in the time stated. In 

 connection with coal machinery a hydraulic coal breaker, 

 patented by Mr. Clubb, of London, has just been very success- 

 fully tested at the Oaks Colliery, Barnsley. 



An Indian paper prints the following interesting account of a 

 fight between a hyanri and a man: — "About five days ago a 

 party of six natives coming towards Deyra through the iMohun 

 Pass, were attacked l^y a hyrena ; it made straight at one of 

 them, and flew at his throat. The poor devil stretched out his 

 hands to keep off his assailant, on which the hyrena bit them 

 severely ; his companions, instead of coming to his aid, toolc 

 refuge in some adjoining trees ; the man, finding himself thus 

 deserted and his hands in a mutilated state, pluckiiy turned on 

 his enemy, and seized his nose with his teeth, roaring out in the 

 best way he could for assistance. By this means he secured tlie 

 animal, and his companions, taking courage, came down from 

 their secure position, and belaboured the beast to death with 

 sticks. I saw the unfortunate man at the dispensary, where he 

 had gone to hav ; his wounds dressed, and was shovni the head 

 of his enemy having his teeth marks on the nose. I believe tliis 

 is almost an unprecedented instance in the annals of natural 

 history, as a hya:na is well known as a most cowardly bnite, never 

 venturing to attack man, but preying chiefly on dogs, carrion, 

 aud young children." 



ANNUAL ADDRESS TO THE GEOLOGICAL- 

 SOCIETY OF LONDON, FEB. 16, 1872 

 By J. Prestwich, F.R.S., President 

 {Continued from page 433.) 

 Onr Coal-measures and our Coal-supply 



Y\^HILE the presence of water has determined the early settle- 

 ment of population, the existence of coal has given rise to ex- 

 ceptional local growths of that population, quite irrespective of 

 the original cause of settlement. The existence of coal has 

 created new wants, developed vast energies, enormous resources, 

 and has established great industries dependent upon it for their 

 maintenance and prosperity. Natural causes, unceasing and 

 ever renewing in tlieir action, maintain our supplies of water in 

 a condition of constant and unfailing operation. They are 

 physical and geological agents, equally in force in the past as 

 in the future of the earth's history. Not so with coal, which 

 is a store of the past, and of which we can look for no renewal. 

 Our Coal Measures, great as they are, have defined limits, wlrere- 

 as our wants seem to liave no bounds. With the increasing 

 magnitude of the latter our fears of the extent of the former have 

 increased, and liave given rise to much speculation and much 

 discussion. At first the estimates of the duration of our coal- 

 fields were little more than guesses ; but tlie subject has of late 

 years been treated in a systematic manner, and in all its various 

 bearings, in the able worlds of Hull, Jevons, and Warington 

 Smyth. To obtain more precise data on these important ques- 

 tions, the Royal Commission of 1S66 was appointed, witli your 

 President-elect, the Duke of Argyll, at its head. On tlie prac- 

 tical and economical questions different members of the Com- 

 mission and separate committees have made valuable reports. I 

 wish on tliis occasion merely to direct your attention to some of 

 the more special geological liearings of the questions discussed 

 in one of the committees, of which the lamented Sir Roderick . 

 Murchison was chairman, the object being " to inquire into the 

 probability of finding coal under the Permian, New Red Sand- 

 stone, and other superincumbent strata." 



On the evidence laid before this committee regarding England 

 north of the Bristol coal-field. Prof. Ramsay was deputed to re- 

 port, while the south of England was relegated to myself. The ' 

 one district embraces all the unproved older secondary tracts be- 

 tween the different well-known coal-fields of the central and 

 northern portions of England. The other district takes in that 

 occupied by the later Secondaiy and the Tertiary strata, already the 

 subject of a valuable paper in our Journal for 1856, by Mr. 

 Godwin-Austen. The excellent mapping of our coal-districts by 

 the Geological Survey, and their accurate sections tlirough the 

 several coal-fields, furnished Prof. Ramsay with data w-hich have 

 enabled liim to prolong these sections across the intervening 

 tracts witli a degree of certainty which gives them very gi'eat 

 value. He has presented us with 33 such sections, which, wdien 

 published, will, with the text already before the public, show 

 how great has been the task, and how successfully it has been 

 accomplished. 



The area of the exposed coal-measures of England may be 

 estimated at about 2,840 square miles. To these Mr. Hull had 

 added 932 square miles of coal-measures overspread by newer 

 formations. The investigations of Prof. Ramsay lead him now 

 to conclude that this latter total of unproved coal-measures may 

 be increased to 2,988, to which may be added 153 miles of the 

 Bristol coal-field, making a total of 3,141 square miles of Coal- 

 measures under the Permian, New Red, and Triassic strata of 

 central and northern England, or of 301 square miles more than the 

 area of all our exposed coal-fields. This branch of the inquiry 

 embraces curious questions of variations in the mass of the coal- 

 measures, in the thickness of the strata, and in the number and 

 persistence of the coal-seams. The extent and magnitude of the 

 faults bounding so many of our coal-fields, is also a point of 

 great difficulty, especially when it is complicated by denudations 

 of pre-Permian and of pre-Triassic age ; and in this intricate in- 

 quiry it must be borne in mind that it is only a question of super- 

 position and faulting, but one also of removal and replacement, 

 involving a number of important geological problems. Espe- 

 cially is it necessai-y to distinguish steep old-surface and sub- 

 marine valley denudations from faults. 



The other inquiry relating to the possible range of the coal- 

 measures under the Jurassic, Cretaceous, and Tertiary strata ot 

 the south-cast of England, involves questions of a much more 

 hypothetical character, and can, in the absence of positive in- 



