16 A Mines Department for the United Kingdom. 



atoms of the elements are arranged in space in order to produce those 

 exquisite shapes, the crystals, in which minerals generally occur. 

 It may be that the problem of crystal structure will eventually 

 receive its complete solution by a continuation of the same process 

 in making use of the knowledge now being acquired of the complexity 

 ■of the atom and the immense forces stored up in it. Mineralogists, 

 having done so much for crystals, may then perhaps direct more 

 attention to the study of non-crystalline colloidal minerals, and thus 

 possibly forge a connecting link with the biological sciences. 



In conclusion, the dominant impression produced by a review of 

 the progress of mineralogy during the past half-century is that it is 

 only in their initial stages that natural history sciences can attempt 

 to keep in rigid compartments mutually independent of each other. 

 As they continue to advance the greater becomes the necessity, and 

 this is true not only of those which concern themselves with the 

 inorganic world but also of those which deal with the living things 

 upon it, to stretch out for aid to the sciences which really stand at 

 the base of all others — chemistry, physics, and mathematics. In the 

 future it is probable that a much more thorough training in these 

 fundamental sciences than is at present considered sufficient will be 

 regarded as an essential preliminary to the proper study of any 

 department of natural history. 



III. — A Mines Department for the United Kingdom. 



rilHE formation of a new Government organization to foster and 

 j_ promote the interests of the Mining Industry of the United 

 Kingdom has been recently proposed in two distinct quarters. The 

 Coal Conservation Committee of the Ministry of Reconstruction, 

 which issued its report (Cd. 9084) early in the past year, recommended 

 the establishment of a Ministry of Mines and Minerals, to be 

 presided over by a Minister with a seat in Parliament ; while in 

 a report to the Minister of Munitions, issued as a white paper 

 (Cd. 1984) on November 15, Sir Lionel Phillips, late Controller 

 of the Department for the development of Mineral Resources in 

 the United Kingdom, favours the setting up of a Mines Department, 

 to be attached to one of the existing great Departments of State. 



In a country like ours, which has probably greater mineral wealth 

 than any area of equal size on the globe, and where the development 

 of vast untapped resources of coal and iron-ore is to some extent 

 hampered by ancient vested interests, the necessity for an organiza- 

 tion of the kind indicated scarcely needs any advocacy. We can 

 therefore confine ourselves to the discussion of the functions that 

 such a Mining Department should be designed to fill. 



Some of them are already performed by various existing 

 Government departments. Thus the Some Office administers the 

 legislation affecting mines and quarries and, in connexion therewith, 

 carries out an inspection by qualified officers : it also collects and 

 publishes in an annual report certain statistics regarding accidents, 

 labour, and output; and it conducts examinations for colliery 

 managers' certificates. The Board, of Trade collects, under the Census 



