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PROGRESS IN SCIENCE. 



MINING. 



From the evidence recently given by the several coal inspectors before 

 Mr. Mundella's committee for inquiring into the present state of our coal 

 trade, under the presidency of Mr. Ayrton, we are enabled to glean figures 

 which represent the actual production of coal in Great Britain during the year 

 1872. The following statistics, showing the output of last year, are of much 

 interest for comparison with the returns of the previous year : — 



Tons. 



South Durham 17,395,000 



Northumberland and Durham 13,000,600 



Yorkshire 14,576,000 



Derbyshire 10,660,000 



Lancashire and North Wales 18,363,236 



North Staffordshire and Worcestershire .. 6,327,188 



South Staffordshire 10,550,000 



Gloucestershire and Somersetshire . . . . 7,000,000 



South Wales 10,131,725 



Scotland 15,383,609 



Total .. .. 123,386,758 



These figures show that, so far from the rise in prices and the disturbed 

 state of the labour market having diminished the production of coal in 1872 — 

 as might fairly have been supposed — we actually raised during that year 

 several millions of tons more coal than in 1871. 



The progress of some trial-sinkings for coal, in the neighbourhood of 

 Cannock Chase, deserves to be chronicled for the scientific interest attaching 

 to these explorations, and the light which they promise to throw upon the 

 relations between the coal-fields of Staffordshire and Shropshire. At Fairoak, 

 a little north-west of Cannock Chase, a boring has proved the existence of 

 coal-measures beneath the Bunter conglomerates, without the intervention of 

 any Permian rocks. At Huntington, due west of Cannock Chase, a hole is 

 being put down with a diamond-mounted borer, but, at the time we write, 

 coal has not been reached. 



The well known trial-sinking at Sandwell Park Colliery is progressing 

 favourably. A second seam of coal has been reached at a depth of 232 

 yards. This seam is about n inches in thickness, and rests on a true fire- 

 clay floor. 



In the South of England, the Sub-Wealden boring continues to make way, 

 though not so rapidly as might be wished. A fine bed of gypsum, between 50 

 and 60 feet thick, has been passed through, and promises to become of much 

 economic value. The specimens which we have seen show that the mineral 

 is a beautifully white fine-grained gypsum, which might evidently be worked 

 with great profit. The bed occurs in the Poundsford series, formerly classed 

 with the lower beds of the Weald, but now believed to be of Purbeck age. 



An admirable geological description of the coal-bearing oolites of Brora, in 

 Sutherlandshire, will be found in Mr. J. W. Judd's memoir " On the Secondary 

 Rocks of Eastern Scotland, published in the May number of the "Journal of 

 the Geological Society of London." It is these oolitic coals that have lately 

 attracted so much attention ; the Duke of Sutherland having, with cha- 

 racteristic energy, authorised a thorough exploration of the old Brora mines, 

 with the view of again testing their coal-producing capabilities. 



A new safety-lamp, constructed on an ingenious principle, has been patented 

 by Mr. Landau. The air required for combustion is contained in a chamber 



vol. in. (n.s.) 3 H 



