312 Messrs. Buckland's and Conybeare's Observations on the 



APPENDIX I. 



On some early Geologists, who have noticed the south-western Coal-district. 



We have been induced to throw together a few remarks on some of the 

 early writers in whose works information is contained concerning the south- 

 western coal-district. 



The earhest document in which any material information bearing on this 

 subject is to be founds is An Essay on the History of Pembrokeshire, left in 

 manuscript, anno 1570, by George Owen of Henllys in that county, but not 

 published until the year 1796, when it appeared in the Cambrian Register. 

 Copious extracts from this work are given in Fenton's historical tour through L 

 Pembrokeshire. This essay of Owen is a work of the highest interest, as 

 being the earliest example, extant in any language, of what can properly be , 

 called Geological investigation. About a century before this period, indeed, ) 

 the attention of several Italian writers had been directed to the organic re- 

 mains of the Sub-Apennine districts, which there lie scattered in such quan- 

 tity and preservation as not to have escaped the notice of the poets of classical 

 antiquity. It was the single fact however of the occurrence of marine remains 

 in inland situations that those writers observed ; and with the single exception 

 of George Agricola, who about the year 1350, in his treatise de Re Metallica, 

 described the more obvious phenomena of metallic veins, no writer until the 

 time of Owen appears to have studied the nature and position of the mineral 

 masses which constitute the crust of the globe. 



Owen describes the extent and general features of the mountain-chains of 

 Pembrokeshire, and the course of the rivers to which they give rise, with an 

 accuracy and spirit which it would be difficult to equal. But what chiefly 

 distinguishes his memoir, is the observation, that the mineral masses, consti- 

 tuting the earth's surface, are not thrown together promiscuously, but are 

 arranged in a regular order and in continuous lines over extensive districts ; 

 an observation which forms the great basis of all scientific geological investi- 

 gation. Owen verifies this observation by tracing two bands of limestone, 

 with the beds of coal adjacent to each, along the northern and southern fron- 

 tiers of the Pembrokeshire coal-field ; and that not only through Pembroke- 

 shire, but in continuation through the other counties of South-Wales : that 

 is to say, over a tract exceeding 100 miles in length. He thus anticipates 

 much of the information contained in the valuable memoir on the coal-basin 

 of South-Wales, communicated by Mr. Martin to the Royal Society in 1806. 



