554 
Thymelacee. Amentifera. 
Daphne Laureola, S. Corylus Avellana, S. 
Luphorbiacee. 
Euphorbia Peplus, S. ENDOGENS. 
3 Helioscopia, S. Liliacee. 
Mercurialis perennis, S. Galanthus nivalis, S. 
Urticacee. Graminee. 
Parietaria diffusa, R. 
Urtica urens, S. 
Poa annua, S. 
Triticum repens, R. 
In conclusion, my object in presenting these notes to your 
readers is threefold ; first, to suggest an agreeable, easy, and yet 
useful occupation for winter walks; second, to indicate the 
value for phenological purposes if a great number of such series 
of observations: could be made for a long series of years at 
various parts of our country; third, to show how great is the 
difference, even within the limits of the Briti-h Isles,! in the 
time of flowering of common plants, and yet how little we know 
upon the subject. Should any desire to assist in work of this 
kind, I would gladly forward free a copy of our printed form, 
containing lists and suggestions for observations, both of flora 
and fauna. The work is carried on in connection with the 
phenological branch of the Meteorological Society, of which the 
Rey. T. A. Preston, M.A., of Marlboro’, is the efficient 
Secretary. 
Bootham, York J. EDMUND CLARK 
Colours of Low-growing Wood Flowers 
No one can enter our English woods just now without being 
struck with the lovely way in which they are starred with the 
yellow of the primrose, the white of the anemone and straw- 
berry, and the light blue of the dog violet. It will be noticed 
that the tints of these flowers seem positively to shine in the low 
herbage and among the semi-shade of the trees and bushes. 
After twice going through the descriptions of flowers growing in 
similar situations, given in Hooker’s ‘‘ Student’s Flora of the 
British Islands,” I find that nearly all our dwarf wood flowers are 
white, light yellow, and light blue. None appear to be red. 
Three are purple—one form of the Sweet Violet and the Ground 
Ivy (Wepeta Glechoma), both of which are scented; and the 
Bugle (Ajuga reptans). 
If the white and yellow tints of flowers fertilised by night- 
moths are of service in guiding the moths to them, may not 
the like tints in low plants in thickets and woods be similarly 
advantageous to the plants by tending to secure fertilisation ? 
The more lordly foxglove, the ragged robin, and other higher 
growing flowers, erect above the low herbage, and enjoying more 
light, are conspicuous enough, but how would a small flower of 
the colour of a foxglove attract attention when hid among the 
grass? The purple of the bugle I cannot account for. The 
ground ivy hasa pungent scent. The purple of the sweet violet 
is certainly inconspicuous, but here the scent may be the attrac- 
tion, or the habit of the plant in forming cleistogamous flowers, 
may secure its multiplication. Hence it may be questioned 
whether the white form of the sweet violet does not mark a 
gradual transition towards that colour. If the white forms are 
more conspicuous, and ecure easier cross fertilisation, they may in 
time preponderate. Perhaps the existence of the sweet violet in 
the purple and in the white form may throw light on the origin 
of the general lightness of tint in dwarf wood subjects. 
The low flowers in dark places which were lighter and made 
themselves best seen, would more readily secure fertilisation, 
and through natural selection would tend to have still paler tints. 
The change might be aided by the bleaching of flowers in shade, 
as described by Mr. J. C. Costerus (NATURE, vol. xxv. p. 482). 
In this connection it may be noted that the wood anemone has a 
rare purple form—perhaps a survival—and that Anemone Apen- 
nina is light blue. ‘The Potentillas, close allies of the straw- 
berry, but mainly growing in the open, have as a rule yellow 
flowers ; sometimes red ones. The various mountain primroses 
of this and other countries, and those that grow in meadows (like 
our own Bird’s Eye Primrose, primula formosa), have mostly 
reddish, lilac, or rosy flowers. The common primrose, when 
growing in exposed hedgebanks has often reddish, lilac, or 
purple flowers. Its sports in cultivation are often white, so it may 
be progressing towards that tint in woods. The cowslip, which 
grows in meadows, has a deeper tinge of yellow than the ox- 
lip, which grows in copses. The cowslip is also far darker than 
* At Wigton, Cumberland, for instance, although on the West coast, Mr. 
J. E. Walker noticed only fourteen wild flowers. 
NATURE 
[ April 13, 1882 
the primrose, and sometimes has a scarlet or -orange-brown 
corolla—perhaps the germ of the dark rich polyanthus of our 
gardens. The primrose family may have originated in woods, 
and have been originally light, gradually darkening as the 
flowers multiplied in the open; or, which is more probable, the 
tribe originated in exposed situations, creeping by slow degrees 
into the woods, and bleaching as it went. 
Bexley, March 30 J. INNEs ROGERS 
Vignettes from Nature 
Mr. BUDDEN is perfectly right in querying the locality of the 
speciu ens of sharks’ teeth which I mentioned as having seen 
from a South American digging. In consequence of a slight 
deafness, I misunderstood my friend’s account of them; and 
knowing them to be American, assigned the word ‘‘ South” to 
“« America,” instead of to ‘‘ Carolina,” in the coprolite pits of 
which they were found. WILLIAM B, CARPENTER 
ECONOMIC GEOLOGY OF INDIA? 
II. 
N a former notice of Prof. Valentine Ball’s important 
work on the “ Economic Geology of India,” the sub- 
jects of the gold supply and of that form of carbon known 
as the diamond, were treated of. In the present notice it 
is proposed to give a brief account of that more impor- 
tant form of carbon known as coal, as well as to allude to 
the valuable information given in the chapters on Iron, 
Salt, and Building-stone. The rocks, which in Penin- 
sular India probably correspond, as regards the time 
of their formation, to the true carboniferous rocks 
of Europe, are not coal-bearing, and the oldest coal- 
measures in the country belong to a period which is 
well included within the limits of the Upper Palzozoic 
or Permian, and the Lower Jurassic formations. All the 
useful coal of the peninsula may conveniently be described 
as being of Permio-Triassic age, and, with two excep- 
tions, it may be added, these measures do not occur 
beyond the limits of the peninsula. In the extra-penin- 
sular area, coal is found in various younger deposits, and 
there are numerous deposits in Afghanistan, the Punjab, 
at the foot of the Himalayas, in Assam and Burma, of 
undoubted Lower Tertiary, Nummulitic, or Eocene coals 
and lignites ; but it is only quite exceptional that such 
deposits possess any great value (the chief noteworthy 
exceptions occur in Assam and Burma). 
According to the somewhat liberal estimates of Mr. 
Hughes, the areas in India, in which coal-measures occur, 
including those unsurveyed, amount in all to 35,000 square 
miles, but the thickness of a vast number of the seams of 
coal in these basins is very varied. For over one century 
the coal-mining industry of India has been in operation, 
and there has been a steady increase in production and 
consumption, especially within the last ten years. Still 
the coal resources of the country cannot be regarded as 
yet developed. Out of over thirty distinct coal-fields in 
Peninsular India, only four or five are worked at all, and 
even of these, but two have arrived at an output of from 
I to 2000 tons a day, and this though in these two fields 
the coal-pits are numerous. 
It is very important that the reasons for this state of 
things should be well understood, and they are not far to 
seek. Most of the coal-fields are very remote from the 
centres of manufacture and from the seaports, and at 
these places the native produce has to compete with a 
better quality of coal sea-borne from Europe. With the 
extension of railways in India, the home coal will have a 
better chance, as the facilities of carriage will enable the 
coal to be brought to the iron-mines, which are mostly 
too at long distances from the ports, and when used in 
the reduction of metallic ores, the demand for coal would 
increase. 
t “A Manual of the Geology of India. Part III. Economic Geology.” 
By V. Ball, M.A., F G.S., Ovticiating Deputy Superintendent, Geological 
Survey of India. Published by order of the Government of India. (Cal- 
cutta, 1381.) Continued from p. 510. 
