Reports and Proceedings — Geological Society of London. 39 



of Sir Eoderick Murchison. The question of coal being deposited in 

 the South of England is still a theory. Turning to the question of 

 the duration of the total available quantity, the lecturer said that 

 chiefly depended upon the statistics of consumption. In the year 

 1660 the coal pi'oduce of the United Kingdom was apparently only 

 about 21 millions of tons; in 1700 a little more than 2| millions; 

 in 1750 nearly 5 millions ; in 1800 upwards of 10 millions of tons. 

 About this period the system of canal navigation was rapidly extended, 

 and the result was that coals were gradually finding their way into 

 new districts, by which means the consumption of coal was greatly 

 increased. In 1816 the production reached probably 27 millions. 

 Advancing to a later period when coal statistics were more carefully 

 collected, it appears that in 1854 the production of coal was upwards 

 of 64 millions. From that period up to and including 1883, when 

 the production of coal in the United Kingdom reached the largest 

 quantity yet recorded, namely, nearly 163| millions of tons, there 

 has been a progressive increase ; except in the years 1857, 1858, 

 1871 and 1878, on which occasions there was a decrease varying 

 from about one to two millions as compared with the quantity raised 

 in the year immediately preceding these dates. Again last year 

 (1884) there was a decrease of nearly three millions of tons. What- 

 ever view may be taken of the question of the duration of coal, the 

 results will be subject to contingencies. On the one hand, the rate 

 of consumption may be thrown back to any extent by adverse causes 

 affecting our national prosperity, and on the other hand, new dis- 

 coveries and developments in new directions may arise to produce 

 a contrary effect upon the consumption of coal. Every hypothesis 

 must be speculative, but it is certain that if the present rate of 

 increase in the consumption of coal be indefinitely continued even in 

 an approximate degree, the progress towards the exhaustion of our 

 coal will be very rapid. — From the Beading Observer, Oct. 17, 1885. 



III. — Geological Society of London. 



(1.)— Nov. 18, 1885.— Prof. T. G. Bonney, D.Sc, LL.D., F.R.S., 

 President, in the Chair. — The following communications were read : 



1. " Kesults of Recent Researches in some Bone-caves in North 

 Wales (Ft'ynnon Beuno and Cae Gwyn)." By Henry Hicks, M.D , 

 F.R.S., F.G.S., with Notes on the Animal Remains, by W. Davies, 

 Esq., F.G.S., of the British Museum (Natural History). 



This paper contained the results of researches carried on in these 

 caverns in the summers of 1883, 1884, and 1885 by Mr. E. Bouverie 

 Luxmore, of St. Asaph, and the author. The enormous collection 

 of bones belonging to the now extinct animals of Pleistocene age 

 obtained had been submitted for examination to Mr. W. Davies, and 

 afterwards distributed to various museums. Several well-worked 

 flint implements were also discovered in association with the bones. 



The following are the conclusions arrived at by the author, from the 

 facts obtained during the explorations : — That abundant evidence has 

 been furnished to show that the caverns had been occupied by 

 hyasuas, and possibly by other beasts of prey, as dens, into which 



