132 Reviews—Proceedings of Field-clubs. 
The Caradoc Field-club, youngest of all, show by their first report 
that they know how to avail themselves of the manifold advantages 
that Shropshire affords for the zoologist, botanist, geologist, and 
archeologist. They enhance, too, the “pleasures and advantages of 
their excursions by meeting the Woolhope Club, the Oswestry and 
Welshpool Club, and the Severn Valley Club. 
Like other kindred associations, the Dudley and Midland Field- 
club has been established for the development of the scientific re- 
sources of a special district; and, being in a mineral district par 
excellence, geology is foremost on its list of objects, geologists are 
strong on its staff, and its inaugural address was eminently geologi- 
cal. The field-meetings work over the many interesting outcrops of 
well-known strata, and are rewarded with rare plants and antiqui- 
ties, as well as fossils, much information being obtained and dis- 
seminated; and, in fulfilment of a judicious detente to cooperate 
with other societies, the Woolhope, Oswestry, Warwick shire, Cottes- 
wold, and Severn Valley Field-clubs have been sharers in the work. 
The Dudley. Geological Society (as it is sometimes termed ) holds also 
field-meetings in the winter with good result. Some good papers on 
local geology are published in No. 2 of the Proceedings, especially 
Mr. H. Johnson’s, on the practical application of Geology to the in- 
dustrial pursuits of the South Staffordshire Mineral District, and 
Mr. E. Hull’s, on the New Red Sandstone of Central England, and 
its usefulness as a source of water-supply. 
We have now to refer to the Geological Society of Manchester, 
last, but not least—as venerable among its class as the Berwickshire 
Field-club is with naturalists. As a representative of the chief pro- 
vincial societies for the cultivation of geology, we allude to this 
scientific association of Manchester men. No. 12 of vol. iv. of their 
Transactions contains much information in a paper by Mr. E. Hull, 
on the occurrence of Glacial Striations on the surface of Bidston 
Hill, near Birkenhead, which he saw with Messrs. Morton and Cun- 
ningham, and a paper by Mr. J. Plant, on the discovery of Coal in 
Brazil, where, it seems, from his brother’s notes on the subject, 
65 feet of coal occurs in 114 feet of strata, extending over 150 square 
miles! Stigmaria, we are otherwise informed by Mr. Plant, under- 
lies some at least of the coal; and we learn too that Sphenopteris 
and Lepidendron are present, as well as a minute fossil crustacean, 
Beyrichia, characteristic of the Paleozoic period. 
We need not enlarge our list of Scientific Societies to show the 
good resulting from the steady activity of British geologists ; co- 
operating with each other, with the Irish societies, and with their 
geological brethren abroad, they seize and utilize much that is of 
value : as eyes are opened, facts are seen; as natural history is culti- 
vated, facts must be grouped; we have seeding-time and harvest in 
science as in farming ; we must watch the outgrowth of facts and 
their concentration in theory; truth and judgment, supported by 
industry and enthusiasm, work in this; and where are better evi- 
dences of this good work than in the Proceedings of our Field-clubs 
and Scientific Societies ? 
