560 Notices of Memoirs—Professor W. S. Boulton— 
while smaller intervening and relatively sheltered areas were allowed 
to yield along their old north-west and north-east lines. 
Need for Systematic Survey by Deep Borings. 
After all, when we turn our attention to the possible extension of 
the Coal-measures under the newer strata of South-Central England, 
the geological data at our disposal are lamentably and surprisingly 
few. Notwithstanding our eagerness to unravel the difficulties, and 
so to open up new fields for mining activity, very little positive 
progress has been made in the last twenty years. Of late a few deep 
borings have been sunk; one near High Wycombe, after piercing the 
Mesozoic cover, ended in Ludlow rocks; another at Batsford, in 
Gloucestershire, fifteen miles north of the well-known Burford boring, 
struck what are regarded as Upper Coal-measures, also resting on 
Silurian rocks. 
At the present time it seems specially fitting to call attention once 
again to our haphazard method of grappling with this great economic 
question. Are we to go on indefinitely pursuing what is almost 
‘wild-cat’ boring, to use the petroleum miner’s expressive slang? 
Or shall we boldly face the fact that systematic exploration is 
demanded; and that this pioneer work is a national obligation, the 
expense of which should be a national charge ? 
At the meeting of the Organizing Committee of Section C, already 
referred to, a recommendation was forwarded to the Council in the 
following terms :— 
‘‘The Council of the British Association for the Advancement of 
Science recommends that the site, depth, and diameter of every 
‘borehole in the British Isles, exceeding 500 feet in depth, be 
compulsorily notified and registered in a Government Office. That all 
such boreholes be open to Government inspection during their 
progress. That copies of thé journals and other information relating 
to the strata penetrated by the boring be filed ina Government Office 
under the same restrictions as those relating to plans of abandoned 
mines.”’ 
I would go further and urge that the Government should under- 
take the sinking of deep borings at selected points. This is no new 
idea. In his Presidential Address to the Geological Society of London 
in 1912 Professor Watts pleaded most forcibly the vital importance 
of a State-aided underground survey of the area to which I have 
referred. The work is too vast for individual effort, or even for 
a private company to undertake. It is not suggested that deep 
borings should be sunk with the express purpose of finding coal. 
What is wanted is a systematic survey by borings at such spots as 
are likely to throw light upon the structural framework of the 
Paleozoic floor and the thickness of its cover... . 
For many years I lived near our great exporting centres of 
the finest steam coal in the world; and as I watched the steady and 
incessant streams of coal-wagons, year in, year out, coming down 
from the hills, I was constantly reminded that we are rapidly draining 
the country of its industrial life-blood. Is it an extravagant demand 
to ask that an infinitesimal fraction of this irreplaceable Nature-made 
