376 Reviews — TJie Submerged Forest at BoTiihay. 



departed for a while from this course and gathered together the 

 information from the various borehole sections which he gives. Of 

 course the correlation of coal-seams is at present quite impossible, 

 yet with the material now in hand it has been found to be possible 

 to obtain at least a general view of the broad outlines of the structure 

 of the coalfield. With this criticism we may pass on to the historical 

 part of the subject-matter. The history of the field, from the early 

 days when Godwin-Austen was trying to convince an unwilling 

 public of the existence of coal in Kent, to the present stage of shaft- 

 sinking and coal-producing, is admirably told, particularly that part 

 of it which is connected with the financial transactions. These, to 

 one unversed in such matters, read more like romance than sober 

 fact, but no less amazing is the incredible persistency with which 

 everyone connected with the coalfield continued to " back the 

 wrong horse " on every possible occasion. Borings were put down 

 on wrong theories, strata highly charged with water were assumed 

 to be quite water-free, shafts were sunk without sufficient pumping- 

 gear, in short almost every wrong assumption which could be made 

 seems to have been made and acted upon ; and yet there is now the 

 Kent Coalfield, a going concern and one which would be now much 

 more active were it not for the War and the threat of nationalization 

 which is hanging over the head of so much colliery enterprise. 



The book is very readably written, and the author is to be con- 

 gratulated on having brought out the first connected account of the 

 development of this very interesting area. 



; W. H. W. 



The Submerged Forest at Bombay. Bv T. H. D. La Touche. 



Rec. Geol. Surv. India, vol. xlix, "1919, pp. 214-19, with 



plates 17-19. 

 A BOUT thirty years ago many tree-stumps, submerged about 

 -^ 20 feet below mean sea-level, were discovered during the excava- 

 tion of the Prince's Dock, Bombay, and described in the Records, 

 vols, xi and xiv. In 1910, during the extension of the Alexandra 

 Dock to the south of the former site, more stumps were discovered 

 and examined by Mr. La Touche. The stumps, 6 or 7 feet high, 

 were rooted in a thin soil on the surface of disintegrated basalt, 

 and embedded in blue clay, which included shells of Ostrea cucullata 

 with valves united. The depth below high water-mark of the rock- 

 surface is about 40 feet, which gives a minimum value for the total 

 amount of depression. These two occurrences prove a considerable 

 subsidence of the rocky floor, on the western side of Bombay harbour, 

 apparently within human times, since one of the stumps seen in 1878 

 was partly burnt. This subsidence is interesting when considered 

 in conjunction with the well-known occurrence of a raised beach 

 in the same neighbourhood. 



