Beviews — Macfarlane' s Coal Regions of N. America. 37 



any case, the author would suggest that, the one favourable solution 

 admitted, it might be desirable, in a question involving so many and 

 such great interests, not to accept an adverse verdict without giving 

 all those considerations the attention and deliberation which the im- 

 portance of the subject deserved. 



Granting the possibility of the work in a geological point of view, 

 there were great and formidable engineering difficulties ; but the 

 vast progress made in engineering science during the last half 

 century led the author to imagine that they would not prove in- 

 surmountable, if the necessity for such a work were to arise, and the 

 cost were not a bar. 



leiE'VIE^WS. 



I. — The Coal Eegions of America : their Topographt, Geolo&y, 

 AND Development. With a Coloured Geological Map of all the 

 Coal Eegions, and numerous other Maps and Illustrations. By 

 James Macfarlane, A.M. Eoyal 8vo. pp. 680. (New York : 

 D. Appleton & Co. London : Triibner & Co. 1873.) 



ME. MACFAELANE'S work forms a most important addition to 

 the geological literature of coal, and being well posted up as 

 regards all the latest Eeports of the Government Surveys, conducted 

 by the best geologists in the United States, it may be looked upon as 

 a most valuable addition to, and even as superseding, to a great ex- 

 tent, those works on the subject published some years since — such, 

 for instance, as Taylor's " Statistics of Coal^" and Prof. Eogers' 

 " Geology of Pennsylvania." 



The author points out that in America, as in this country, both 

 anthracitic or steam coal and bituminous coals occur ; but the com- 

 parative abundance is very different, as is also the relative distribution. 



By far the most important and the best known coal, says Mr. 

 Macfarlane, is anthracite. It is the universal fuel for domestic use 

 in the United States, in preference to all other kinds of coal (p. 7). 

 The largest area for this coal is that of the Anthracite Coal-fields 

 of Pennsylvania, the total extent of which is 472 square miles, 

 having an average thickness of 100 feet of coal. 



The other regions, as the first or Alleghany Coal-field, the Penn- 

 sylvanian bituminous regions, the semi-bituminous coal regions of 

 Blossburg, etc. (which latter, with 53 working companies, produced 

 in 1871 a yield of 2,714,790 tons), the bituminous coal regions of 

 Western Pennsylvania, Maryland, West Virginia, Ohio, Eastern 

 Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Western 

 Kentucky, Iowa, Nebraska, Missouri, Kansas, Arkansas, and Texas, 

 are treated at considerable length, carefully prepared sections and 

 maps being furnished to each area, showing the extent and thickness 

 of the seams. 



Chapters are also devoted to the Triassic Coal of Virginia and 

 North Carolina; the Cretaceous Coal of the Eocky Mountains, 

 Colorado, Wyoming Territories, and the Pacific Coast ; besides the 

 extension of the Carboniferous series into Canada and Nova Scotia. 



