478 GEOLOGY AND MINERALOGY. 
lish farmers, and to induce them to adopt it. We shall point out 
the evils that would, as we believe, inevitably attend and follow its 
adoption. 
In the first place, by absorbing a large amount of the capital now 
engaged in agriculture, the means of the farmer would be restricted, 
and the improvement of the land retarded; whilst, by the distraction 
of his mind between two incongruous employments—both of which, 
to be successful, requires an individual attention—he would generally 
lose that steadiness of character which has been one of the principal 
means of his success. Whatever temptation there may be in sea- 
sons when low prices prevail, to deviate from the regular cultivation 
of the land, and to divert it in part, and the capital employed, to 
manufacturing purposes, for the sake of an immediate advantage, 
the return thus obtained would not compensate for the injury that 
would be permanently inflicted upon the land, and, therefore, upon 
the occupier in the deterioration of the soil, as in Austria. 
But, however profitable this system may, at its commencement, 
prove to the distiller, its extension would certainly prove ruinous to 
all engaged in it. The increased supply would inevitably lower the 
price of the produce till it yielded no profit, or even left a loss. 
This has actually been the case in France, where, for the last two 
years, most of the distilleries have been stopped on that account; 
and all the efforts of the Champonnois party to make out that they 
yielded a fair profit, have failed to convince those who actually suffer- 
ed a loss on the working. The fact, too, that in the states of the 
Zolverein upwards of thirty works that had been changed from the 
production of sugar to that of alcohol have again reverted to the first 
purpose, is too significant to require any comment. 
SCIENTIFIC AND LITERARY NOTES. 
GEOLOGY AND MINERALOGY. 
COAL DEPOSITS OF BRITISH COLONIES IN THE SOUTH. 
(From the Mining Journal of April 27, 1861.) 
“ Among the numerous mineral products that will be shown at the Interna- 
tional Exhibition of 1862, there can be none of greater interest than the samples 
of coal. Every information as to quality, extent of deposit, facility of working, 
and market price, with statistics of the quantity mined, will be of great impor- 
tance. The supply from our own coal beds at home is indeed enormous, and 
the export trade, as we have already shown, considerable; but the economic 
