138 Reports and Proceedings — 



a wall, thirty feet high and thirty feet wide, reaching from London 

 to Brighton. The coal removed from our mines since the year 1800 

 would form a mass nearly a cubic mile in dimensions. 



This enormous and increasing consumption of coal must have its 

 limit before long. Were the rate to continue as now, and could coal 

 be got from 4000 feet depth, we might look forward to England 

 having 1000 years before her with coal at hand. Bnt the lavish, use 

 of this fossil fuel increases every year ; and if the digging be 

 practically limited to 3000 feet (as is most feasible), our combustible 

 treasure can last for only 300 years ! T. E. J. 



III. — Journal of the Boyal Microscopical Society, containing 

 its Transactions and Proceedings, with other Microscopical 

 and Biological Information. Edited by Frank Crisp, LL.B., 

 F.L.S., etc. Vol. II. No. 1, February, 1879. 8vo. (London : 

 Williams & Norgate.) 



"VTEW life has been infused into this Journal through the energy 

 ±\ and ability of its present Editor, Mr. Frank Crisp, who seems 

 determined to make it a thoroughly useful and successful scientific 

 periodical. The part just issued has a far richer complement of 

 varied biological information relating to histology, than the former 

 ones, inasmuch as notices of foreign discoveries are especially cared 

 for ; there is a full catalogue of books and journals, and of their 

 contained memoirs, treating of microscopical research. The Trans- 

 actions of the Society furnish eight illustrated memoirs to this 

 Journal; and of the notes and memoranda there are fifty and more. 

 There is little that bears on Geology in this February Number, 

 except a notice of Prof. Verrill's discovery of Cliona sulphurea freely 

 penetrating some marble blocks wrecked off Long Island in 1871. 



T. E. J. 



EEPOBTS JL.1STJD IPIROCIEIEIDIiriTa-S. 



Geological Society of London. — I. — January 22, 1879. — Henry 

 Clifton Sorby, Esq., F.E.S., President, in the Chair. — The following 

 communications were read : — 



1. " On Community of Structure in Eocks of Dissimilar Origin." 

 By Frank Eutley, Esq., F.G.S. 



After alluding to the community in mineral constitution of certain 

 rocks to which different names have been applied, and indicating 

 the advisability of retaining some old terms in a provisional 

 sense, questions relating to the causes of the angular and rounded 

 characters of certain rock-constituents were discussed. The author 

 then described some of the more common structural peculiarities met 

 with in rocks of various origin, especial attention being directed to 

 those in which micro-crystalline, crypto-crystalline, or micro-felsitic 

 conditions have been either normally developed or superinduced ; 

 while other rocks were described in which corresponding structure, 

 sometimes coupled with a similar mineral constitution, may be met 



