42 JOURNAL AND PROCEEDINGS. 



deep in the soil, in a fruitless search for coal in Silurian sea sediments. 

 Well, it reminds me of an occurence in Ireland about the time I 

 received my first commission in Her Majesty's Service. The Gov- 

 ernment of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, after 

 mature deliberation, arrived at the conclusion that the natives of the 

 latter Island could not well prove an utter neglect of their interests, 

 when we, My Lords, have already directed the general officer in 

 command of the scientific branch of the army, to select such men, 

 officers, etc , as he may consider necessary to carry out the sugges- 

 tions of certain supporters, who ask us to give them what they call 

 a Trigonometrical Survey of that portion of the empire. In due 

 time, detachments of the Royal Engineers (then known as the Royal 

 Sappers and Miners), arrived and commenced operations by erecting 

 pillars of large, loose boulders on the highest points of the mountain 

 chains. English tourists, I understand, have mistaken them since 

 for Druidical Monuments, or Altars of the Pagan Sun Worshippers. 

 Unfortunately, during the progress of the work on which they were 

 employed, some Silurian Graptolites were laid bare and mistaken for 

 land plants of the Carboniferous age, and worse still, the places 

 where discovered, marked on the maps as coal fields. As a natural 

 consequence, relying on the assertions of the survey, mining com- 

 panies were started, and many thousand pounds sterhng expended in 

 what every geologist knew to be a fruitless search. The military 

 authorities appear never to forget the ridicule the scientific corps of 

 army brought on themselves and their selectors on that occasion. 

 The sarcastic comments of the men of the hammer were so bitterly 

 resented, that long after the occurrence, a Horse Guards communica- 

 tion addressed to the Commanding Officer of a regiment serving 

 abroad, clearly intimated the displeasure of an important personage 

 while he strongly disapproved of geological pursuits on the part of 

 military men altogether. The matter above stated may show the 

 neccessity of the changes which have recently taken place in the 

 British Army. 



Let me give another instance where a slight knowledge of geo- 

 logical matters would not have been amiss in this scientific branch 

 of the service. At Newcastle, in the Blue Mountains, Jamaica, a 

 reservoir was made for the use of the troops stationed there. The 

 bottom was lined with porous, earthly material, not with the proper 



