82 Revieics — EulVs Coal-fiehh of Great Britain. 



give a temperature of 40° C. In the proposed Mont Blanc tunnel, 

 however, the mountain mass would he greater than in either of the 

 Simplon routes, and the temperature even higher. M. Dubois- 

 Eeymond has said that work under such circumstances would be 

 impossible in a dry temperature of more than 50° C, or in a moist 

 one of over 40° C, but Herr Stapfif considers that some of the deep 

 mines show that this is below the mark, but, however, points out 

 the great difficulties that would accompany any such undertaking 

 where there are a large number of workmen, even were no animals 

 used, and even with every precaution taken in accordance with the 

 experience now gained. 



A good coloured geological section, together with a comparative 

 diagram of the temperature, accompanies the paper. A. W. W. 



I^ IE] "^ I :E AA7" S. 



I. — The Coal-fields of Great Britaust ; their History, 

 Structure and Resources. With Descriptions of the Coal- 

 fields of our Indian and Colonial Empire, and other Parts of the 

 World. By Edward Hull, M.A., LL.D., F.R.S., etc. 8vo. 

 4th edition. (Londou, 1881 : Edward Stanford, 55, Charing 

 Cross.) 



AN important addition to the literature of our Coal-bearing rocks 

 has just appeared in the fourth edition of Prof. Hull's work 

 on "The Coal-fields of Great Britain." Few books have had so 

 great a success, or of which new editions have been called for so 

 rapidly. The third, embodying the Reports of the Royal Coal 

 Commission, was published in 1873, and now in little less than eight 

 years we are presented with the fourth. Portions of the work have 

 been largely re-written, a new frontispiece representing characteristic 

 plants of the Coal period, and three woodcut sections have been added. 

 The latter include sections across the Castle Comer and Tyrone 

 Coal-fields respectively, and a section through the London basin. 



The chapter devoted, in the last edition, to the consideration of 

 the Animal and Vegetable remains of the Coal period has been 

 split up ; the latter portion is entirely new, having been drawn up by 

 Prof. Williamson, F.R.S. 



As might have been expected, the stratigraphical classification has 

 been modified to meet the more recently enunciated views on this 

 subject as expressed by Prof. Hull in the Quarterly Journal of the 

 Geological Society, for 1877. 



The statistical portions of the work have been brought down to 

 the date of 1878, whilst the highly important question of quantities, 

 both wrought and unwrought, has been re-considered. The results 

 given in the present volume naturally diff"er considerably from 

 those stated in the last edition, allowing for the output during the 

 interval between the appearance of the two volumes. In several 

 instances Prof. Hull bows to the decision of the late Coal Commission 

 in this matter, always, however, with the reservation, that seams of 



