C.—GEOLOGY. 91 
of the Geological Survey on a scale at all comparable with it fills one with 
astonishment at the amount of work accomplished by him, single-handed, 
and with admiration for his accuracy. 
It is strange that, in the amateur and official work which followed 
_ during much of the nineteenth century, so little interest was taken in the 
industrial application of geological knowledge which in Smith’s hands had 
been so productive. The science had, as has been said, the ‘landed 
manner,’ and the dignity of its application to arts and industries was little 
appreciated. A former Director of the Geological Survey of Great Britain, 
Sir Andrew Ramsay, quoted with approval the saying of one of his 
colleagues, ‘it is but the overflowings of science that enter into and 
animate industry.’ And thus, though the scientific side of geology stood 
to gain much otherwise unattainable information from contact with its 
economic application, this source of knowledge was not fully utilised, 
and an air of mutual suspicion—not wholly unjustified—grew up between 
‘theoretical’ geologists and those who applied geology to mining and 
other economic problems. Fortunately this feeling is passing away; the 
_ two sides have found that each is indispensable to the other, and geologists 
are everywhere co-operating with those whose work is connected with the 
discovery or exploitation of the mineral wealth of the earth-crust. 
Material Service. 
Coal.—The first branch of industry to which geology made itself 
indispensable was coal-mining. Geology has long been in close contact 
with its problems, in mapping the extent of coal-fields, collecting inform- 
ation as to the succession of measures and the existence and lie among 
them of wants, faults, and igneous rocks, tracing the extension and 
variation of coal-seams, and estimating the resources available ; and, as 
seams are worked at increasing depths, and in those parts of fields concealed 
_ under thick unconformable cover of more recent formations, the work of 
the geologist has become more essential and increasingly productive. 
It is interesting to observe the application of the ‘ academic’ sides of 
geology to these more recondite problems, in unravelling tectonic com- 
plexes, in the collection of facts which may eventually elucidate the 
precise conditions under which different varieties of coal have originated, 
in applying knowledge as to the limits of the original areas of coal deposit, 
in the interpretation of stratification in the light of the progressive travel 
_ of coal-forming conditions geographically across the coal-producing areas, 
and in the stratigraphical relationship and exact mode of formation of 
_ the covering rock-systems. 
—_— 
It is true that the accessibility of coals when first exploited, and their 
distribution in seams of varying quality, led, and in the newer areas are still 
leading, to much waste : waste on fruitless search in the light of obtainable 
knowledge, in exploitation of good, thick, and easily worked seams to the 
neglect of poorer ones, in the non-preservation of satisfactory plans and 
the consequent leaving of derelict areas, in unsatisfactory drainage, and in 
the loss of valuable by-products. But there is a corresponding advantage 
to those of our generation that some exposed areas of complicated structure 
and many of the concealed coal-fields were left for ourselves and future 
generations by reason of working difficulties which it would have been 
premature to face in the time of easily obtained abundance. 
