TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION C. 651 



pass westward, in the direction of Calais, and plunge under the newer rocks near 

 Cond^, from which point to Theroiiaune they extend, and are worked over two 

 Departments, their discovery being due to borings carried on at the expense of the 

 French Government. Therouanne is the furthest point to the west, where they 

 have been worked. At Calais, about thirty miles still further to the west, they 

 have been proved in a deep boring for water, at a depth of 1,092 feet below 

 the sea. From this point westward they have not been struck until we reach 

 Somersetshire. 



The borings for water, however, made in the London area show that the water- 

 worn Primary rocks which come to the surface in the West of England, and in 

 Northern France and Belgium occur under London at a depth of less than 1,200 

 feet below ordnance datum, and that they are highly inclined, as in those regions. 

 These rocks are of the Silurian and Devonian ages, and their high inclination implies 

 that the strata are thrown into a series of folds which, in some neighbouring area, 

 must bring in the Carboniferous rocks. 



The strata of the North French and Belgian Carboniferous rocks, if carried 

 westwards into South-eastern England, as Mr. Godwin-Austen has shown, would 

 bring them in the district between Hythe and Sandwich. These circumstances have 

 aflbrded me sufficient reasons for choosing Dover as a good site for a deep boring, 

 which has been undertaken by tlie directors of the South-Eastern Railway, with 

 the intention of proving the westward extension of the Calais measures, which are 

 only twenty-seven miles distant to the east in the line of strike. It starts at the 

 foot of Shakespeare's Cliff', about thirty feet above ordnance datum, and in the lower 

 chalk at a point about 160 feet above the Gault. The older rocks will probably be 

 struck at that point at a depth of less than 1,000 feet — probably very much less. It 

 must be noted that if the Calais section be repeated at Dover, and the chalk main- 

 tains its uniform thickness on both sides of the Channel, the latter boring starts at 

 a point 851 feet below the former in the rocks. On the other hand, the Gault at 

 Dover will probably be found thicker than at Calais, and the Wealden beds, absent 

 from Calais, may be expected at Dover. These, however, in Mr. Whitaker's 

 opinion, are of no considerable thickness. 



The probability that the coal measures will be struck in this district is rendered 

 greater by the discovery of a mass of bituminous mineral in a fissure in the chalk 

 north of Dover, that has probably — as Mr. Godwin Austen pointed out in his 

 evidence before the Coal Commission — been derived from the Coal-measures below. 

 By the kindness of the Council of the Geological Society, I have been allowed to 

 make a minute examination of Mr. Austen's specimens, and I find that the mineral 

 properly is a pitch, which has resulted from the distillation of coal. 



The interest attaching to this experimental boring is very great. If the Coal- 

 measures are proved, a discovery of vast importance will be made. If, on the other 

 hand, rocks older than the Carboniferous are struck, they will offer a basis for 

 further borings, which will ultimately result in the discovery of the hidden coal- 

 fields of South-eastern England, and cause as great an economic revolution in that 

 region as that which has been caused in France and Belgium by the discovery of 

 the coalfields underneath the Chalk. 



TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 7. 



The following Reports and Papers were read : — 



1. Report on the Fossil Plants of the Tertiary and Secondary Beds of the 

 United Kingdom. — See Reports, p. 241. 



2. On Canadian Examples of supposed Fossil Algce. 

 By Sir J. William Dawson, C.M.G., F.B.S. 



Markings of various kinds on the surfaces of stratified rocks have been loosely- 

 referred to Algse or Fucoids under a great variety of names ; and when recently 



