Feb. 2 1, 1884] 



NA TURB 



395 



Committee, or, in his absence, with one of the honorary secre- 

 taries, with respect to any ad interim arrangement that may 

 have to be made requiring the subsequent sanction of Sub- 

 Committee A. 



10. All the administrative work of the Central Institution, 

 general questions of discipline, and the superintendence of the 

 library and museum, shall be in charge of the Organising 

 Director and; Secretary of the Institute, who shall act under 

 instructions from Subcommittee A. 



GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF THE UNITED 

 KINGDOM 1 

 T^ HE completion of the one-inch Geological Survey Map of 

 England and Wales affords a fitting opportunity for direct- 

 ing public attention to the history and progress of this great 

 national undertaking. 



As far back as the year 1832 that enthusiastic geologist, 

 Henry T. De la Beche, began at his own expense to prepare 

 geological maps of the mining districts of Cornwall and Devon. 

 Being impressed with the great public utility of such maps in a 

 country deriving so large a portion of its wealth from its mineral 

 resources, he applied to the Government of the day for recog- 

 nition and assistance. Eventually he and his two or three 

 assistants were incorporated as a portion of the staff of the 

 Ordnance Survey. From this modest beginning De la Beche's 

 genius conceived the idea of founding a great central establish- 

 ment in London, in which specimens of all the ores and other 

 mineral products of the country should be selected and arranged 

 for public inspection and reference, and where should also he 

 preserved copies of the plans of mines and collieries, from 

 which it would lie possible to learn at any moment what areas 

 had been exhausted and the condition of the abandoned under- 

 ground workings. But besides the practical applications of 

 .science, he contemplated the foundation of a school in which all 

 the sciences concerned in mining operations should be taught by 

 the ablest professors in the country, and of a museum in which 

 the rocks, minerals, and fossils of the British Islands should be 

 thoroughly illustrated and made completely available to the 

 public for instruction as well as for economic purposes. Being 

 gifted with indomitable perseverance and no common measure of 

 personal tact, he succeeded in impressing his views upon the 

 Government. By degrees the Geological Survey was fully or- 

 ganised and equipped, and the Mining Record Office and the 

 Royal School of Mines were established, De la Beche himself 

 becoming the Director-General of the whole scheme. The ac- 

 commodation afforded him at first in the buildings in Craig's 

 Court soou proving inadequate. Parliamentary sanction was in 

 the end obtained for the erection of the present establishment in 

 Jerrayn Street, which was opened in 1851, and which, as was 

 then said by the late Sir Roderick I. Murchison, " stands forth, 

 to the imperishable credit of its author, as the first palace ever 

 raised from the giound in Britain which i , entirely devoted to 

 the advancement of science." 



In the meantime, while its offslioots were showing such 

 vigor )us growth, the original and parent Geological Survey 

 was extending its operations over the country. The objects 

 for which it was created were twofold. In the first place it was 

 meant to advance geological science by the production of an 

 accurate and detailed geological map of the United Kingdom, 

 with the necessary sections and descriptive memoirs, and by the 

 collection of a full series of specimens to illustrate the mineralogy, 

 petrography, and paleontology of the various geological forma- 

 tions. In the second place it was designed to be "a work of 

 great practical utility bearing on agriculture, mining, road- 

 making, the formation of canals and railroads, and other 

 branches of national industry." This original conception of 

 the object of the Survey has been steadily kept in view. From 

 the districts first surveyed in Devon and Cornwall the mapping 

 was pushed forward into the south-west of England, and then 

 into South Wales. In 1845, the importance of the work having 

 now been fully realised by the Government, some changes were 

 made in the organisation. In particular, tlie charge of the whole 

 scheme was transferred from the Board of Ordnance to the Office 

 of Woods and Works. A branch of the Survey was likewise 

 equipped for the investigation of the geology of Ireland, where 

 some progress had already been made by Capt. Portlock, R.E. 

 Nine years later — viz. in 1854 — the operations of the Survey 

 * From llie Times, 



were extended to Scotland, and the whole establishment was 

 finally placed under the Science and Art Department, which 

 had now been created. The basis of the Geological Survey 

 map is the one-inch map of the Ordnance Survey. In Ireland 

 and Scotland, where Ordnance county maps on the scale of six 

 inches to a mile have long been in existence, the geologists of 

 the Survey made use of this larger scale for their field work, 

 which was subsequently reduced and published on the one-inch 

 scale. In England corresponding six-inch Ordnance maps 

 having meanwhile appeared, the Geological Survey of the 

 northern -counties was carried on upon them. The surveys of 

 the northern coalfields and other mineral tracts have been 

 engraved and published on this larger scale. These maps 

 embody a mass of accurate information regarding the structure 

 and resources of our mineral districts, and have been much 

 appreciated by those who are practically interested in the 

 development of this branch of the national industry. 



The Ordnance Map of England and Wales is divided into 258 

 squares, known as sheets or quarter-sheets. These can now be 

 procured as sheets of the Geological Survey, except those last 

 completed, which are now in preparation. As the whole ground 

 has been surveyed, the remaining maps may be expected to 

 appear with no great delay. To make the maps fully available 

 for the information of the public, sections and memoirs are 

 issued. The sections are of two kinds. One of these, called 

 Horizontal Sections, of which 130 have been published, are 

 drawn on a true scale of six inches to a mile, the profile of the 

 ground being accurately shown by levelling, with the geological 

 structure underneath. Many of these sections are accompanied 

 by explanatory pamphlets. For various economic purposes, such 

 as railway-cutting, tunnelling, water-supply, mining, road-making, 

 building, and so on, these Horizontal Sections are of the utmost 

 value. The second kind, called Vertical Sections, are drawn on 

 the scale of forty feet to an inch, in explanation of the detailed 

 structure of our coalfields. One of the most valuable parts of the 

 work of the Survey is embodied in its "Memoirs." At first these 

 were issued in goodly octavo volumes, either embracing a num- 

 ber of disconnected essays, some of which, like Edward Forbes's 

 famous paper on the history of the British flora, have become 

 classics in geological literature, or devoted entirely to the de- 

 scription of a particular area, such as John Phillips's well-known 

 treatise on the Malvern Hills. After 1855, when, on the death 

 of Sir Henry De la Beche, Sir R. I. Murchison became Director- 

 General, this form of memoir was postponed in favour of shorter 

 explanatory pamphlets with which each sheet or quarter-sheet 

 was to be accompanied. These were designed to supplement 

 the map and sections, and to make their information at once in- 

 telligible to the public by giving detailed information regarding 

 the natural sections, characteristic :fossiIs, economic minerals, 

 &c., in each district. It was fully determined, however, that, 

 as the Survey advanced, ample monographs should be prepared 

 for each geologicil formation or imjiortant district. Among 

 the other publications of the Survey are the "Decades" 

 and "Monographs" of organic remains, of which seventeen 

 have been issued; the " iVlineral Statistics" of the Mining 

 Record Office, \\'hich have appeared as an annual volume for the 

 last thu'ty years ; and various catalogues and other works, which 

 swell up the total separate printed publications of the Survey of 

 the United Kingdom to upwards of 270. It ought to be stated 

 here that, first under De la Beche, and subsequently under 

 Murchison, the work of the Survey depended largely for its 

 efficiency and breadth of view on the Local Director, Prof, (now 

 Sir A. C.) Ramsay, who on Murchison's death \^•as appointed 

 Director-General in 1S72, and continued in that post until his 

 retirement from the service at the end of 18S1. He was then 

 succeeded by Prof. Geikie, who had for more than fourteen years 

 held the office of Director of the Survey in Scotland, and who 

 since his appointment has pushed on the completion of the one- 

 inch map of England and Wales, which is now announced by 

 him as accomplished. The completion of the map of what is 

 termed the "Solid Geology" of England and Wales — that is, 

 the rocks underlying the superficial deposits — terminates indeed 

 an important part of the work of the Survey. 



But much remains to be accomplished. The one-inch map of 

 Ireland will be completed in a few years ; but that of Scotland, 

 not having been begun till much' later, and having always had a 

 much smaller staff, will require longer time. From the last 

 published report of the present Director-General we learn that 

 .such of the staff as are qualified for the difficult mountainous 

 area of Scotland will be transferred to that region as soon as 



