i6o 



SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



N. rarinervis, N. temrifolia, Lepidodendron aculeatum, 

 Cordaicarpus. 



From 1,900 feet were identified: Neuropieris 

 scheuzeri, N. rarinervis, N. tenui/olia, Cyclopteris (a 

 fragment), Calainophyllites goepperti (Ettingsh.), Lcpi- 

 dostrobus variabilis, Cordaicarpus. 



From 2,038 feet came : Stigmaria ficoides, Lepi- 

 dodendron lycopodoides, Neuropieris scheuzeri. ( l ) 



M. Zeiller reports decisively on Neuropieris 

 rarinervis and N. scheuzeri, as having only been 

 observed, either in America or in Europe, towards 

 the top of the Middle Coal Measures, or at the 

 extreme base of the Upper. In the Radstock and 

 Faringdon Beds, in Somersetshire, these two fossils 

 are common. M. Zeiller concludes that from the 

 position of the beds traversed, they rightly belong 

 to the Middle Coal Measures. 



In the Natural History Museum are some speci- 

 mens from the Dover boring, two being of the 

 genus Neuropieris, and one fairly agreeing with 

 N. scheuzeri. These came from depths of 1,262 

 feet and 2,038 feet from the surface. They are, 

 however, but fragmentary, good and perfect speci- 

 mens being rare in a narrow core. The same 

 fossil, it is as well to bear in mind, was brought 

 from a depth of 1,174 f eet from the surface at 

 Burford, in Oxfordshire. 



There are also in the Museum four cores from 

 Dover. One is from 1,262 feet from the surface, 

 composed of grey sandstone and grit, and streaked 

 with coal, the streaks being inclined at a slight 

 angle. The seams of coal are, however, completely 

 horizontal. A core of true coal is exhibited from 

 2,039 f eet ' ar) d another with coal and grey grit 

 intermingled, from 2,088 feet. There is also a core 

 of grey sandstone grit from 2,234 f eet . which is 

 below the four-foot coal-seam (2,221^ feet). 



A peculiarity of the Kent coal-field will probably 

 lie in its great length as compared with its width. 

 It is the most westerly of that series of coal-fields 

 which, starting trom Westphalia, proceeds by way 

 of Ruhr, Aix-la-Chapelle, Liege, Hainault and 

 Valenciennes. These Belgian coalfields extend 

 west and east for over two hundred miles, whilst 

 their width never exceeds eight miles. 



Even if the Coal Measures and Devonians pass 

 in a north-westerly direction beneath London 

 towards Burford or the Midlands — the Carboniferous 

 and older rocks occurring in detached basin-shaped 

 areas with denuded outcrops, we know, at least, 

 that between Ware (Herts) and Streatham, there 

 are no Coal Measures. But the probabilities are 

 that at least one line of detached coal-basins occurs 

 by way of Ashford, Tonbridge and Reigate, to the 

 Bristol coal-field, and that this rising ridge of 

 Palaeozoic rocks was that against which the 

 Wealden estuarine deposits came to be cut off and 

 confined to within narrow limits, no intermediate 



(V'Compte; Re.idus des Academic des Sciences" (Paris 

 1390). 



Oolites being found, be it remembered, at Crossness, 

 Meux's, Turnford, or Ware, and the Wealden not 

 reaching so far north as Chatham, Crossness, or 

 Richmond. Prestwich states that it is on the 

 north flanks of the older rocks of the Ardennes 

 range of hills that the coal-fields of Belgium lie. 

 The long and narrow south of England coal-fields, 

 which in the future will be opened up, will lie south 

 of the rise of the Palaeozoic rocks before referred 

 to, and north of a prolongation of the line of 

 disturbance which Prestwich noticed in the 

 Ardennes, and a continuation of which he an- 

 nounced as being exhibited in the Mendips. 



The discovery, made as far west as Richmond, in 

 Surrey, of fragments of anthracite intermingled 

 with pebbles of Coal Measure sandstone, in the 

 junction-beds both above and below the Bath 

 Oolites, gave unmistakable evidence of an exposed 

 Carboniferous surface in Mesozoic times, at a spot 

 where coal-measure sandstone was intersected by 

 a seam of anthracitic coal. Professor Hull con- 

 cludes that, from the brittle nature of such coal, 

 these fragments must have been derived from no 

 very distant surface. The gap in the downs in the 

 neighbourhood of Dorking is about fifteen miles 

 due south of the Richmond boring. It is on our 

 line of conjectural coal-basins, and great changes 

 may in the future wait upon even that fair district. 



It would probably be unwise to attempt to 

 obtain coal as far north as Streatham, since there, 

 at a depth of 1,120 feet, beds of probable Devonian 

 age were reached in which were found what 

 appeared to be fish remains. If the Coal Measures 

 lie, as is anticipated, in narrow basins, the fact 

 that Carboniferous Beds were not met with at 

 Streatham confines the westerly extension of the 

 Dover beds to within a comparatively narrow area. 

 Nor would it be wise to anticipate that the coal 

 basins extend as far south as Battle, near Hastings, 

 since here, although a depth of 1,905 feet was 

 pierced, no Palaeozoic Beds were reached, the 

 Wealden Beds attaining a very great thickness. 

 Beyond London, certainly beyond Ware, there 

 may be another trough of these old rocks in which 

 relics of the Carboniferous surface is still in 

 existence. There must be a trough of some sort, 

 in order to account for the distance northwards to 

 which the rise of the Coal Measures is deferred. 

 Between Streatham and Ware, that is, beneath 

 London, there is but the faintest possibility of 

 coal at any time being found. 



It is no new thing that coal should be worked 

 beneath the Chalk. It is of constant occurrence in 

 the Pas de Calais, although it was only as recently 

 as 1S64 that these measures came to be worked. 

 Now, so important has this coalfield come to be 

 regarded, that more than a third of the coal raised 

 in the whole of France comes from that area. 



[To be continued.) 



