213 



GEOLOGICAL NOTE. 



Drift- Coal in Durliam. — [The following note, which we have received 

 through Prof. Lebour, and which bears upon the subject of his note in our last 

 number, is of distinct local value, and will be useful to our Durham readers.] 

 In 1864-68 I was one of the contractors (Monkhill and Prodham) engaged in 

 making the railway from Scotswood to Benfieldside. About 3 14 miles up from 

 Scotswood, nearly opposite Gibside, was the the biggest cutting on the line — some 

 sixty feet deep or so in the deepest part. About two-thirds of the depth was dry 

 sand resting on the hardest of boulder clay. In the sandy portion were what you 

 describe as 'discontinuous, wedge-shaped, current-bedded patches of coal,' as well 

 as numerous fragments of coal all through the sand. This coal was picked out by 

 the navvies to make fires during the dinner hour, and for use in the huts near by, 

 and was of a remarkably fine quality, as I have often heard them say, and superior 

 to any they got from the pits and from coal seams in cuttings further up the line near 

 Ebchester. It burnt like cannel coal, with a bright flame. What I remember of 

 the size of the pieces is that plenty of them were as big as one's two fists, or nearly 

 so, and about as angular or rounded. They were bright-coloured, more like jet 

 than the hard slate-coloured cannel coal of Scotland. The coal was found in 

 greatest abundance at the Scotswood end of the cutting, and where the sand was 

 cleanest. At the west end of the cutting the sand was of a loamy nature, and did 

 not contain much — or any — coal. — Herbert Prodham, Allerston, near Pickering, 

 March iith, 1885. 



THE YORKSHIRE NATURALISTS' UNION: 

 ANNUAL MEETING AT DONCASTER. 



The twenty-third annual meeting of the Yorkshire Naturalists' Union, which was 

 held at Doncaster on Tuesday the 3rd of March, was a remarkably successful and 

 interesting one, thanks to the admirable reception which had been organised by the 

 Doncaster Microscopical Society. There was a large attendance of members from 

 all parts of the county, more than twenty Societies being represented. The pro- 

 ceedings commenced in the afternoon, when the General Committee met to 

 transact the business of the annual meeting. After the admission into the Union 

 of the Scholes Botanical and Naturalists' Society, and of along list of new members, 

 Messrs. A. H. Allen, F.C.S., of Shefaeld, Thomas Bunker of Goole, W. E. Brady 

 of Barnsley, F. W. Dickinson of Rotherham, J. M. Kirk of Doncaster, Washington 

 Teasdale, F.R.M.S., of Leeds, and J. A. Erskine Stuart, L.R.C.P., of Batley, 

 were added to the list of permanent members of the General Committee. The 

 Annual Report, w'hich was then read and afterwards adopted, pointed out that the 

 year had been a very successful one, and reviewed its chief features. The usual five 

 excursions had been well chosen, as the large attendance of members at each had 

 proved. The Societies which constitute the Union had remained at thirty-nine in 

 number. Two Societies — those at Mirfield and Shipley — had ceased to exist, while 

 two others — the Kingston Field Club, of Hull, and the Hull Great Thornton Street 

 Wesleyan Field Naturalists' Society — had joined the Union. The statistics 

 furnished showed that the Union now included 349 members and 2,422 associates, 

 making a total of 2,771, twenty-three more than in the previous year. It was 

 pointed out that the number of subscribing members (349) was as yet inadequate, 

 and a hope was expressed that the associates would see the necessity of considerably 

 augmenting the number of the members. Reference was then made to the publi- 

 cation of two instalments of the 'Transactions' during the year; and after an 

 allusion to the Naturalist, the Executive expressed their sense of the honour which 

 Lord Walsingham had done the Union by accepting the presidency, his tenure of 

 which had materially enhanced the prestige and dignity of an office which has been 

 occupied by some of the most distinguished of scientific Yorkshiremen. The excursion 

 programme for 1885 was then decided upon as follows: — Kiveton Park, 30th April ; 

 Boroughbridge, Whit-Monday ; Market -Weighton or Pocklington for the Wolds, 

 June; Whitby, August Bank-holiday; and Blubberhouses, by invitation of Lord 

 Walsingham, early in September. For the annual meeting of March 1886, invita- 



April 1885. 



