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On Wednesday evening, 8th February, Dr. J. S. Holden, 

 F.G.S., of Larne, read a paper on " A Visit to the Mines of 

 the Black Country, South Belgium, and the Hartz Mountains." 

 He said that South Staffordshire well merited the popular 

 name of the Black Country, abounding, as it does, with coal 

 mines and iron forges, rendering the district black above and 

 below ; with a night glare of countless fires making the 

 gloom almost Plutonic. The coal field is surrounded by 

 Permian and New Red Sandstone rocks, and rests uncon- 

 formably on the Silurian, which, in some parts, is upheaved, 

 bearing the coal with it. What distinguishes the coal field of 

 the Black Country from all other co'al fields is the running 

 together of many seams without partings, forming, as seen 

 near Dudley, a bed 10 yards thick, with an outcrop showing 

 the strange sight of a cliff of coal 40 feet high for 100 yards. 

 Another peculiarity is the sudden faulting of the coal seams 

 when they meet the Permian boundary, and are entirely lost. 

 Last summer a company was formed to seek them by sink- 

 ing through the Permian, near West Bromwich. Already a 

 permanent shaft has been sunk 40 feet, but no coal discovered 

 yet. A successful issue is confidently expected, and this 

 would be encouragement to renew the efforts made in Antrim 

 to sink for coal through our New Red Sandstone. Basalt 

 occurs in the Black Country; in some places it intrudes and 

 overlies the coal seams, changing a valuable 12 feet into a 

 worthless, earthy coke of 2 feet. At Bentley is a small quarry 

 of basalt, which might compare with the Giant's Causeway 

 rock, so perfectly columnar is its structure. It is quite an 

 island, as coal is mined all underneath it. The varieties of the 

 modes of working the coal and iron mines were described. 

 Dr. Holden joined an excursion of South Staffordshire mining 

 engineers to the coal fields of Belgium, where the Govern- 

 ment gave every facility to their examining the mines between 

 Mons and Liege. The great peculiarity of this district is the 

 contortions and zig-zag folding of the coal seams, so that one 



