438 Our Future Goal Fields. 



to be solved are mainly these : — First, what is the maximum 

 thickness of the Permian and Triassic systems in the districts 

 above mentioned? At present this has not been at all accu- 

 rately made out, though it is a matter of the greatest 

 importance in arriving at a reliable estimate of the difficulties 

 to be encountered in mining the underlying coal. In the 

 second place, we still require additional evidence upon the 

 precise increase of temperature which prevails at depths of 

 from one to two thousand yards. Having due regard to the 

 advances which have been made in our knowledge upon these 

 points during the last few years, we may reasonably hope that 

 in proportion as the attention of scientific men is directed to 

 these investigations, we shall have reliable data laid down upon 

 which the practical solution of the existence of coal underneath 

 the tracts indicated will be easily determined, and, if discovered, 

 will be worked with facility, though not at so cheap a rate as 

 the mineral which lies nearer to the surface. 



The immense importance of these questions is now fully 

 admitted, especially in the Midland and Northern counties, 

 for there some of our most important and most extensive 

 manufactures have been established. The great hardware 

 " village," where everything metallic is made, from a trinket 

 to a ponderous steam-engine ; the adjoining Black Country, 

 with its extensive manufactures of iron ; the potteries of North 

 Staffordshire ; the textile fabrics made in Lancashire and 

 Yorkshire ; are all dependent in a high degree upon the coal 

 which has long been obtained close at hand. With the pros- 

 pect of further supplies, which may be regarded as almost 

 exhaustless, those manufactures will still retain their ground, 

 nor will they show any tendency to migrate towards the West, 

 or to any other shadowed home of future civilization and 

 human enterprise. Of course there are numerous elements of 

 uncertainty which ought to be taken into account when endea- 

 vouring to estimate the probable existence and value of coal 

 measures underneath the Triassic rocks. It is just possible that 

 the coal seams may thin out over large areas, or denudation 

 may have removed all the upper coal measures during the 

 interval between the close of the Carboniferous and the com- 

 mencement of the Permian periods, though it is not unlikely 

 that this latter contingency has been considerably overstated. 



We may take it for granted that the mineral resources of 

 our island are not yet even approximately known. The last 

 quarter of a century has been exceedingly prolific in important 

 discoveries of our natural wealth. The Northampton and 

 Cleveland iron ores ; the phosphatic deposits of North Wales, 

 Cambridgeshire, etc. ; the hamiatites of various places ; and 

 the extension of the coal-producing areas, are recent additions 



