554 Notices of Memoirs—Professor W. S. Boulton— 
So far as I am aware, there is not any official connexion between 
the Imperial Institute and the Geological Survey; and it is to be 
regretted that in the recent Act of Parliament whereby the manage- 
ment of the Institute is definitely transferred to the Colonial Office, 
and which provides for the appointment of an Executive Council of 
twenty-two members to supersede the present Advisory Committee, 
no provision is made for the co-operation of the Geological Survey in 
the geological and mineralogical side of the Institute’s work. And 
may I say, in passing, that I think it is also a grievous mistake to 
develop a Research Department at the Institute without making 
some attempt to collaborate with the neighbouring Imperial College 
of Science and Technology, which, with its fine equipment and expert 
staff of researchers and teachers, should constitute a real Imperial 
College of Science and Research, in fact as in name? 
But, these matters apart, it will be recognized on all hands that an 
ample field remains open for the energy and enterprise of the Imperial 
Institute as a Clearing House of scientific and technological know- 
ledge for the whole Empire, and especially for bringing the results of 
scientific investigation into touch with the main streams of industry 
and commerce. ... 
The Development of Concealed Coalfields. 
I pass on to consider what is, or should be, another phase of the 
work of our National Survey, namely, the discovery and development 
of concealed coalfields. 
The Royal Coal Commissions of 1866 and 1901, and frequent 
addresses and reports by leading geologists in recent years upon the 
extension of our coalfields under newer rocks, bear witness to the 
sovereign importance of this branch of economic geology. One after 
the other the coalfields are being re-mapped by the Geological Survey, 
and we confidently expect the work to continue. But asthe known 
coalfields become opened up and gradually exhausted, the question of 
the survey and development of concealed coalfields becomes ever more 
pressing and vital to our position asa great industrial nation. 
In the Yorkshire, Nottingham, and Derby Coalfield the rapid 
extension of workings eastward under the Permian and Triassic cover 
during recent years has been remarkable; and although the estimates 
of its buried Coal-measures adopted by the Commission of 1901, at 
that time thought conservative, have since come to be regarded as 
too liberal, we may still rely upon a buried field of workable coals 
larger in area than the exposed Coal-measure ground of this great 
coalfield, so that the whole combined field will prove the richest in 
our islands. 
The Kent Coalfield has made a peculiar appeal to popular imagin- 
ation, partly because 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 vividly 
describes the rapid exploitation of this field.' 
* ““The Search for New Coalfields in England’’: Royal Institution of Great 
Britain, March 17, 1916. Ee te) 
