Correspondence. 135 
considerable. The length of the left antler is 3 feet 9 inches; of 
the right antler, 4 feet. The first branch was 2 feet long, the next 
was 20 inches; there was another 17 inches long, and the last was 
9 inches, the rest being broken off. The distance from tip to tip 
was almost 9 feet, but the palm was broken off. The Museum 
of the town of Banbridge, Co. Down, has lately been enriched by 
a perfect specimen of this species, obtained in the immediate neigh- 
bourhood. 
At the meeting on Feb. 2, a paper was read by the President, 
G. C. Hyndman, Esq., On Field-Naturalists’ Clubs, and how they 
should be carried on.—R. T. 
CORRESPONDENCE. 
—— 
1. FORMER EXTENSION OF THE COAL-MEASURES. 
To the Editor of the GEoLoGicaAL MaGaziIneE. 
Srr,—There are some ‘auld-warld’ notions in Geology, resting on 
the authority of great names, or on that of a former general accep- 
tation, which every now and then reappear, to the no small astonish- 
ment of those who had deemed them long ago tacitly abandoned. 
Two of these notions crop out in the genial and excellent review of 
Professor Ramsay’s Lectures in your last number. These are, Ist. 
That our present coal-basins were originally formed as basins, like 
that of the Miocene basin of Bovey Tracey. 2ndly. That ripple- 
mark (more properly ‘ripple’ or ‘current-mark’) proves the neigh- 
bourhood of a ‘sea-margin.’ 
A ripple on the surface of a bed proves the existence of a current 
in the water that flowed over it, just as a ripple on the surface of 
the water proves the existence of a current in the air that flows 
over it. It is only an evidence of the shallowness of that water to 
this extent, that currents of the requisite strength are more frequent 
in shallow water than in deep. Possibly, in very deep water, even 
if there were a current at the bottom, the pressure of the water 
might prevent the heaping up of the little ridges ; but this is a point 
of physics on which I offer no opinion. 
As to the Coal-measures, I would declare, as a practical geologist, 
my belief that wherever in the British Islands there is Carboniferous 
Limestone, it was formerly covered by Coal-measures in some form 
or other; and, moreover, that wherever there is true Old Red 
Sandstone, it was formerly covered by the rest of the Carboniferous 
formation in some form or other. 
The South-Welsh Coal-field must formerly have been continuous 
with that of the Forest of Dean, and with that of the Clee Hills and 
Shropshire; the Malvern and other hills rising, perhaps, through it 
like islands. The Coal-measures of Nottinghamshire and Yorkshire 
must once have spread over what is now the great northern anticlinal 
to those of Cheshire and Lancashire ; and there can be no doubt 
that these now spread, in a more or less ruined condition, beneath 
