494 
kind of iron ore may have hitherto been overlooked in other coal- 
fields, the attention of all coal-owners cannot too soon be directed 
to the discovery of the “ Black Band” upon their own property *. 
COAL FORMATION IN WIGTONSHIRE. 
Mr. Carrick Moor has given us a paper on the West Shore of 
Loch Ryan in Wigtonshire, showing that sandstones and shale of 
the coal formation form a narrow band nine miles in length parallel 
to Loch Ryan; in some parts of which have been found Stigmaria 
ficoides and Calamites, but hitherto no useful beds of coal. On 
these coal-measures rest nearly horizontal beds of a red sandstone 
breccia, and beneath them greywacke, probably Silurian, abounding 
in graphtholites. 
COAL IN SICILY, NEW ZEALAND, NEW HOLLAND, BORNEO, SOUTH 
AMERICA, AND KERGUELEN S LAND. 
At a time when steam navigation is assuming a character of in- 
calculable importance to the world, the discovery of coal in any 
maritime position in distant regions that lie upon the great commer- 
cial highway of nations, demands the attention of all whose duty or 
interest it is to facilitate the means of rapid intercourse between the 
most distant extremities of the habitable globe. 
Respecting Sicily, we have been informed by Dr. Calvert that he 
has himself seen a bed of good tertiary coal three feet thick, close 
to Messina, in a Fiumera to the left of Fort Gonzago, from which 
thirty years ago the English commander and himself laid in a stock 
for their winter fires, and which was used by our dragoons for their 
forge ; although this is probably of tertiary formation, it may, like 
that of Cadebona, afford useful fuel. 
From New Zealand I have seen a specimen of coal very like that 
of Staffordshire, found on the north shore of the southern island, 
near Cape Farewell, by the crew of a boat accidentally landing at 
the base of a cliff, in which the first thing noticed was a bed of coal 
three feet in thickness projecting over their heads. This coal in all 
* Mr. Hawkshaw’s observation as to the manner in which flashes of bi- 
tuminous mud, from putrescent lagoons, overflow the country adjacent to 
them, in the tropical regions of Venezuela, on the arrival of rains after a 
season of drought, may illustrate the cause of the presence of the large 
quantity of inflammable matter which occurs in the rich iron ore of the 
so-called Black Band. 
A similar discharge of bituminous mud from lagoons over the surface of 
certain beds of growing vegetables in the time of the coal formation, may 
have been the cause of converting the beds thus overflowed and impregnated 
with bitumen into Kannel or Candle coal; and an argument in favour of 
this hypothesis is supplied by the fact of the microscopic structure of. the 
plants in Candle coal being more distinctly and universally preserved 
throughout the entire mass, than in ordinary coal. Similar bituminous 
irruptions may have caused the sudden death and perfect preservation of 
the fossil fishes that swarm in certain beds of highly bituminous shale of 
the coal formation, as also in the copper slate of the Hartz, and other bitu- 
minous shales. 
