TRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. 383 



paitly becaiisf of its proximity to London, and its distance, amid England's 

 fairest garden, from the great and grimy industrial areas of the North. A recent 

 address by Dr. Strahan vixidly describes the rapid exploitation of this field.' 



A problem of perliaps wider geological interest than that of the Kent Coal- 

 field, and certainly of greater complexity, and containing the possibility of an 

 even richer economic harvest, is the occuiTence of buried Coal Measures 

 under the great sheet of red: rocks between the Midland coalfields, and under 

 newer beds in the area to the south and east of them, towards London. 



For the ultimate solution, of this problem an appeal will have to be made to 

 many geological principles of which the high theoretical interest is universally 

 acknowledged, although their practical importance is not so immediately 

 apparent. Thus the minute zonal work in the Chalk, the laborious studies 

 among Jurassic Ammonites, as well as the detailed investigations of minor 

 transgressions and non-sequences ia the Mesozoic rocks generally, will all have 

 their value when estimating the nature and thickness of cover over the buried 

 Coal Measures. 



But the .shape and structure of the buried Palaeozoic foundation of East and 

 South-central England, with its possible coal-basins, is a more difficult because 

 a more obscure question. It has already claimed the serious attention of 

 geologists, and will doubtless demand in the near future a more rigid and 

 exhaustive study. 



Professor Watts, in his Presidential Address to the C4eological Society in 

 1902, dealt in coneiderable detail with the possible methods of extending our 

 knowledge of this problem, and Dr. iStralian has returned to the iiroblem again 

 and again in recent years.' 



One obvious line of attack is the more intensive study of the structure of the 

 exposed coalfields, which is made possible by our ever-widening knowledge 

 obtained largely from toal workings, present and past. 



And here 1 digress for a moment to lay stress upon a great and needless 

 loss of valuable and detailed knowledge of our Coal Measure geology. It is 

 well known that the Home Office Eegulations demand that plans of workings 

 in the different seams at a colliery shall be made and maintained by the colliery 

 officials ; and that on the abandonment of the mine copies of such plans shall be 

 kept at the Mines Department of the Home Office for future reference. For 

 ten years, however, they are regarded as confidential. Such information is 

 recorded primarily with a view to the prevention of accidents due to inrushes 

 of water and accumulations of gas. 



LTnfortunately, as mining men can testify, the plans arc often woefully 

 incomplete, inaccurate, and [lositively misleading as regards such features as 

 fa\i]ts, rolls, wash-outs, and so forth, and this is notoriously so along tlie margin 

 of the plans where workings have been abandoned. Cases have been brought 

 to my notice where plans of old workings have been consulted when adjacent 

 ground was about to be explored, and subsequently the plans have proved to 

 be grossly inaccurate, with the consequent risk of serious economic waste. I 

 believe this unfortunate state of things is partly the effect of the complete 

 official severance of the Geological Survey and the IMines Department of the 

 Home Office. When the Geological Survey was first established, and for many 

 years afterwards, a Mining Record Office for the collection and registration of 

 all plans relating to mining operations was attached to it ; but subsequently the 

 Alining Record Office was transferred to the Home Office. 



I would suggest that it ought to be made possible for all mining plans to be 

 periodically inspected by Government officials with geological knowledge, not 

 merely after the plans are deposited in a Government office, but during the 

 working of the mine ; so that, if desirable or necessary, the geological facts 

 indicated by the mine-surveyor on the plan can be tested and verified. If 

 accurate and properly attested plans of old workings were always available, 

 the opening up of new ground would be greatly facilitated and much waste of 

 time and money would be avoided. 



' 'The Search for New Coalfields in England.'— Royal Institution of Great 

 Britain, March 17, 1916. 



' Presidential Address to Section C, Brit. Assoc, 1904; Presidential Address 

 to Gcol. Sop. . London, 1913. 



