1840.] Asiatic Society. 1141 



H. ToRRENs, Esq. 



Secretary, Asiatic Society. 

 Sir, 



In obedience to the commands of the Right Honorable the Governor General in 

 Council, conveyed in Mr. Secretary Bushby's letter to you, under date 3rd February, 

 I have now the honor to submit my report on the collection brought out by Captain 

 Tremenheere, as a basis for the proposed Museum of Economic Geology. I should 

 state perhaps, that Mr. Bushby's letter only reached me on the 10th instant, and 

 that I have also been delayed by the necessity of referrmg to Captain Tremenheere's 

 Memorandum, which 1 have only this day obtained from Bishop's College Press. 

 I have incorporated with the report, my views as to the additions which may most 

 usefully be made to the Museum, and as to the manner in which these may be best 

 obtained. I remark, that the Society in general is referred to on these points, but as 

 my ideas relative to them are necessarily connected with the facts and views comprised 

 in the report, I have thought that I might, without presumption, and even with some 

 convenience, as to perusal, combine them in one statement. 



I. — The collection brought out by Captain Tremenheere, is a valuable basis for 

 a Museum of Economic Geology, but it should be borne in mind, first, that it is only a 

 commencement ; and next, that it is almost a purely English collection. The little we 

 yet know of Indian Geology has taught us that, on many points, there are wide 

 differences from the received systems at home, extending even to the absence, or great 

 rarity, of whole formations, and the presence of others which have no known corres- 

 ponding types in Europe, or indeed in any part of the world ; and it is quite possible 

 that her mineralogy, when better known, may also produce its novelties. Hence we re- 

 quire, — if we wish to render our proposed Museum complete, as a light to the acquisition 

 of existing knowledge, and a guide to future research, and this more especially in an 

 economic point of view — a complete English and foreign series of specimens, by which 

 the student and speculator may well understand their systems and processes, and a 

 complete Indian one, fully to comprehend and avail ourselves of our own. I mention 

 this in the first place, that I may not appear desirous of embracing too much, or to be 

 Temarking in any spirit of depreciation upon what the liberality of the Honorable the 

 Court of Directors and the Government of India have allotted to the Society. 



II. Coal. — The present collection comprises 51 specimens of coal and anthracite, 

 from various coal fields. Those from several other English coal fields, as I learn 

 from Captain Tremenheere's report, are to be sent out. To these I suggest should be 

 added specimens from the Scotch, and if possible from the French, Belgian, and 

 American coal fields ; with a series of specimens from each, illustrating also the coal 

 formations and pseudo-coal formations; as for instance, that of Brora in Sutherland- 

 shire. As we improve our mining systems and our mining knowledge, we shall probably 

 obtain better coal.* We require also a set of sections of the coal measures of 



* It may be perhaps doubted if our Indian coal has yet had fair play ! The amount of our 

 experiments as yet seems to have been, the burning of Indian and English Coal upon grates and in 

 furnaces made for the latter, and then to pronounce the Indian coal as inferior ! It is so no doubt, 

 but it might produce far better results in grates and in furnaces adapted to it, on the principle 

 that every kind of coal requires a different arrangement of these, to produce its maximum effect. 

 This remark is not perhaps exactly in place here, but the importance of the subject may excuse 

 its introduction. 



