86 



THE GEOLOGIST. 



lamps ; and the circumstances under which they are really 

 safe or dangerous. This gentleman had visited the Hyde, 

 Dukinfield, Middleton, and Irlam^s-o^th'-Height coal dis- 

 tricts, and addressed very numerous audiences at each place. 

 It was highly gratifying to learn, that the working colliers, 

 flocked to hear him, and evinced the greatest desire to be- 

 come thoroughly acquainted with the nature and principles 

 of the different lamps now in use for lighting mines. Mr. 

 Looney was also delighted with the intelligence and love of 

 knowledge exhibited by this class of workmen, who have 

 often been represented to the public as an ignorant and dis- 

 orderly body of men ; and he is convinced, that they only 

 need the means of instruction to be given to them, so as to 

 become as intelligent a body of workmen as any in the Bri- 

 tish dominions. — Mr. James Heywood read an Introduc- 

 tory Sketch of the Geology of France, by the Rev. H. L. 

 Jones, M.A.:— 



France, it was observed, was one of those countries in Europe where 

 geological phenomena were developed on the largest and most striking 

 scale. The tertiary basins of Paris, of Auvergne, and of the Gironde ; 

 the oolitic formations of the Jura, the volcanic formations of Auvergne 

 and the Cantal, and the primary formations of Brittany, Dauphiny, and 

 the Pyrenees, present fields of research to the student which are almost 

 inexhaustible, and are, at all events, calculated to occupy the time and 

 attention of many careful observers, whether from the formation of val- 

 leys, the cuttings of rivers, the action of the sea on the coast lines, or 

 still more from the dislocations attending the hnes of the principal moun- 

 tain chains. Most of the geological phenomena of France lie ready to 

 the hand and hamm.cr of any one who chooses and knows how to ob- 

 serve ; and the works published on the various districts, with the public 

 collections of the capital, open to every body's examination, render the 

 study of French geology doubly attractive from its facility. Thus, the 

 hills of Montmartre and Grignon, in the Paris basin, are, in them- 

 selves, museums and books which anybody can readily study who can 

 approach them ; and the volcanoes of Auvergne are still fresh in appear- 

 ance, and preserve all the usual phenomena of past igneous action. It 



