68 



NA TURE 



[May i6, 1907 



ihe Midlands. The region includes exposures of the 

 famous Permian boulder-beds (pp. 60-64), °" which we 

 should now like the opinion of some South African 

 geologist. 



The Geological Survey of the United Kingdom, which 

 is intent on bringing the knowledge of our own islands 

 up to date, issued two memoirs, with accompanying colour- 

 printed maps, at the close of 1906. In one, Mr. W. A. E. 

 Ussher describes the country between Wellington and 

 Chard (Memoirs of the Geological Survey, " Explanation 

 of Sheet 311," pp. vi4-68, price is. 3d.). The map. 

 Sheet 311 of the new series, centres in the interesting 

 watershed of the Black Down Hills, where the streams 

 running south and west have cut through a plateau of 

 Cretaceous rocks into the underlying Trias. The west- 

 ward extension of the Selbornian beds (largely of .\lbian 

 age) beyond the Rhtetic and Jurassic, and their striking 

 unconformity with these earlier strata, form interesting 

 features in the map. The " clay with flints " appears for 

 the first time in this region as " in part Eocene." The 

 dilTiculty of selecting colours for superficial deposits which 

 will suit all areas of our complex island is seen in the 

 resemblance between " valley gravel and rainwash " and 

 Triassic strata. In the index, however, this resemblance 



the greenstones. The post-Carboniferous earth-movements 

 h.-ive produced conspicuous cleavage and cross-cleavage in 

 the Devonian shales of Watergate Bay, whereby the 

 original bedding is at times entirely lost. Plate iii. is here 

 reproduced, as a particularly beautiful example of 

 cleavage-planes with secondary puckering, and no trace 

 of true stratification. 



The Geological Survey of Ireland has issued a memoir 

 on " The Geology of the Country around Limerick," by 

 Mr. G. W. Lamplugh and the staff of the Survey, as 

 constituted at the time of its transfer to the Department 

 of Agriculture and Technical Instruction (Dublin, 1907, 

 pp. vi-|-i20, price 2s.). The drift edition of parts of 

 Sheets 143 and 144, forming a special colour-printed map 

 with Limerick nearly in the centre, is issued simul- 

 taneously, price IS. 6d. The area is largely covered by 

 Boulder-clay, but includes e.xposures of the interesting 

 volcanic and intrusive rocks that are here associated with 

 the Carboniferous Limestone. The seven photographic 

 plates by Mr. H. J. Seymour illustrate all the important 

 rocks of the district, and include a good example of beds 

 of limestone carried bodily forward in Boulder-clav from 

 the area surveyed by the author of the plate, "fhough 

 the main object of the memoir was the description of the 

 superficial deposits, a number of new 

 observations on the underlying rocks 

 have been added by Mr. Kilroe. The 

 same writer has dealt with the 

 economic geology, and particularly 

 with the soils and subsoils. 



Puckered slate shi 



n-slip, rioilh-end ul" Watergate bay, Newquay, Cornwall 



is greater than in the actual map. In the memoir we 

 touch the work of many previous writers, including 

 De la Beche and I-'itton, and have the advantage of the 

 views of Mr. Jukes-Browne on the correlation of the 

 Cretaceous series. 



In the second memoir (" Explanation of Sheet 346. The 

 Geology of the Country near Newquay," pp. iv-(-i32, 

 price 3s.), Messrs. Clement Reid and Scrivenor describe 

 an area in which the interest ranges from the Pliocene 

 outlier of Saint Agnes to partly abandoned tin and 

 copper mines. The close relation between the lodes and 

 the nietamorphic aureole of intrusive granite is at once 

 obvious on the map. The economic section and appendix, 

 the latter by Mr. D. A. Macalister, justly occupy forty- 

 eight pages of the memoir. The granite cuts rocks of 

 Lower Devonian age, which are now coloured on the 

 map in tints of grey. The old familiar brown colour 

 appears in the area of beds, now known to contain 

 Pteraspis, near St. Mawgan, above which undoubtedly 

 marine strata prevail. Interesting veins containing 

 axinite are described by Mr. Flett in association with 

 certain intrusive greenstones. They are attributed to 

 " pneumatolytic " action, such as promoted the formation 

 of tourmaline in other places, and are thus connected with 

 the intrusion of the granite. These garnct-axinite-augite- 

 epidote veins are held to have occurred where lime-silicates 

 or patches of impure carbonate of lime were provided by 



NO 1959. VOL. 76] 



THE COATS OBSERVATORV, 



PAIS LEVA 

 T^HIS observatory, the establishment 

 and maintenance of which are 

 entirely due to the munificence and 

 public spirit of the Coats family, is 

 situated about seven miles to the west- 

 ward of Glasgow. From a meteor- 

 ological point of view it occupies a 

 vrry important position, being in the 

 path frequently taken by the storms 

 coming from the .Atlantic Ocean. 

 The observatory is now fully equipped 

 with ordinary and self-recording 

 meteorological instruments : there was, 

 however, at first no intention of carry- 

 ing on meteorological work, but Mr. 

 Thomas Coals before his death, in 

 October, 1883, having provided a 

 standard barometer and therinometer, 

 the committee of management after- 

 wards supplied other instruments, and with those observ- 

 ations were regularly taken morning and evening. The 

 records are preserved by the Paisley Philosophical 

 Institution ; readings have been transmitted monthly 

 to the .Scottish Meteorological Society, and the results 

 are also separately published by the institution. The 

 observatory was originally established for astronomical 

 purposes, and was placed under the care of the Philo- 

 sophical Institution. .Mr. Thomas Coats generously offered 

 to relieve the society of all expense in the matter, and to 

 provide a suitable building, and he expressed the hope 

 that the establishment would " prove a stiinulus to interesr 

 the rising generation of the town and neighbourhood in 

 the study of astronomy — a science little understood among 

 us, but which may, under the leading spirits of our Philo- 

 sophical Institution, brconie a subject of instruction that 

 will be eagerly sought after." Ho endowed the institu- 

 tion with the sum of 2000!. in trust, and the observatory 

 was opened to the public on October 1, 1883. We are 

 indebted to the Philosophical Institution for the accom- 

 panying il!';stration of the observatory. 



The original design was enlarged by the founder, who 

 supplied a transit instrument, clocks, &c., and after his 

 death his representatives intimated their desire to render 

 the equipment still more complete, and added another 

 1 "The Coats Obs:rvatory, Pahley ; its Hisfry and Equipment." By 

 Rev. A. Henderson. Pp. 48. (Paisley : J. and E. Barlake.) 



