286 Proceedings of Learned Societies. 



PROCEEDINGS OF LEARNED SOCIETIES. 



BY W. B. TEGETMEIER. 



THE BRITISH ASSOCIATION. 



The annual meeting of the British Association for the Advancement 

 of Science has been held this year at Birmingham. Professor Phil- 

 lips, in his inaugural address as president, gave an admirable resume 

 of the progress of science during the past year. Among the more 

 valuable communications to the different sections, may be mentioned 

 Professor Jukes' Lecture on the Possible Extent of the Coal Mea- 

 sures below the Red Rocks of the Midland Counties of England. 



The continued prosperity of this country so greatly depends on 

 the supply of mineral fuel, that the recent prognostications of cer- 

 tain eminent geologists as to the possibility of that supply being 

 exhausted in less than a century, at the continuously accelerated 

 rate of consumption, have given rise to much uneasiness. 



Professor Jukes mentions that there are doubtless large tracts of 

 coal measures containing good beds of workable coal under the Red 

 Rocks of the Midland Counties, but that there are also many parts 

 where the coal measures do not exist under these rocks. The Car- 

 boniferous Limestone or coal formation was formed in a sea which cer- 

 tainly spread over the greater part of the British Islands ; but at the 

 time of its existence, an island, or, perhaps, numerous islands, 

 consisting of lower and previously-formed beds, stretched across the 

 Midland Counties, from Wales through Shropshire, Staffordshire, 

 and Warwickshire into Leicestershire, and, perhaps, extended still 

 further south and east. In consequence of these islands existing in 

 the sea, little or no carboniferous deposits took place in the districts 

 named. 



Subsequently, however, this land was depressed beneath the 

 water in which the coal measures were formed, and the uppermost 

 beds of that group spread in level sheets over the land. Since this 

 deposition, a great erosion and destruction of the coal measures 

 has taken place, and the most important subjects now to be deter- 

 mined are : Under which part of the New Red Sandstone that now 

 overlies the coal measures do workable coals still remain? How thick 

 is the New Red covering in those parts ? Do Permian rocks occur 

 between the New Red and the coal measures ? These are points 

 which can only be answered by those who possess an accurate 

 knowledge of theoretical and practical geology. Professor Jukes 

 states distinctly, that any one intending to try for coal beneath the 

 Red Rocks, must be prepared to sink boldly one thousand yards 

 before there is any hope of meeting with the coal measures. There 

 is then, a chance, and a chance only, that the adventurer may find 

 good workable coal beneath him. But there is also a chance of his 

 finding the coal measures destitute of valuable workable coal ; or of 

 his not finding the coal measures at all, but, in consequence of their 



