334 Museum of Economic Geology. [No. 124. 



and design of the Museum of Economic Geology in London, perhaps 

 it may be useful, and not altogether out of place, briefly to state the 

 objects for which the latter were founded, and to shew the manner in 

 which we endeavour to attain them, before I venture to offer any ob- 

 servations which Mr. Piddington's Report may have suggested on the 

 proposed establishment in India. 



The Museum of Economic Geology was founded, in order to obtain a 

 more perfect and general knowledge of the mineral wealth of the United 

 Kingdom and its colonies than now exists,* and to render the knowledge 

 thus obtained readily available to the public, endeavouring to promote 

 an increase in the advantages to be derived from our mineral wealth, 

 by shewing where and in what manner mineral substances at present un- 

 touched in particular districts may be profitably worked ; by pointing out 

 that by adopting the mode of working elsewhere either in this or other 

 countries, mineral substances may be more profitably raised than they 

 now are in certain districts, and by preventing an useless expenditure of 

 time and capital in researches which can only end in disappointment. 



Another chief object is to shew the application of Geology to Agricul- 

 ture, and to afford to the public the facility of obtaining correct analysis 

 of soils at a rate so moderate, as to bring them within the means of the 

 many, and thus, by obtaining a multitude of facts relating to soils, be 

 enabled to arrive at conclusions which may be of very material benefit 

 to the agriculture of the country, and which might not otherwise have 

 been rendered so readily apparent. 



In fact, the Museum may be considered, without further detail, as an 

 establishment founded to shew and promote the application of Geology 

 to the useful purposes of life in a variety of important ways, and thus 

 aid in advancing the general welfare of the country. 



Though the establishment is termed a Museum, from containing col- 

 lections of mineral and metallurgical specimens, models, &c, these 

 collections only constitute a part of the general whole, and are solely 

 intended to render that whole effective. Under the same roof, there is a 

 well appointed Laboratory, an office for the accumulation and preservati- 

 on of the mining documents of the United Kingdom, and a work-shop 



* Itself an object of great national importance, as even at present it is known that 

 the annual value of the Coals (taken at the pit mouth, and of the metals, and of a few 

 other mineral products) in their first merchantable conditions raised in the United 

 Kingdom, exceeds £20,000,000. 



