38 



THE GEOLOGIST. 



information as oiu: colonial con-espondent desii'es, thi'ougli the facility with which 

 questions could thus be brought before hundi-eds of readers, and a gi'eater amount 

 of instmction would, by these means, be received tlian in ordinary course could l;e 

 expected fi'om any specially appointed secretaiy or other officer. At all events, we 

 lay om'selves open for receipt of foreign or colonial communications, and for the 

 examination and notice of such foreign and colonial fossils and specimens of rocks 

 and minerals, &c., as may be transmitted to us carriage-free, holding such speci- 

 mens at the direction of the proprietors, or disposmg of the same in any inexpen- 

 sive maimer. 



Protest against the tse of Initials by Correspoxdents. — "I eagerly 

 look for the Geologist as the first of each month comes round ; and I heartily 

 wish it success. To me, however, and I doubt not to more of yoiu' readers, the 

 interest and usefuhiess of the work is lessened by the number of minor communi- 

 cations which appear under anonymous signatm'es. Periodicals of this class effect 

 one most important puiiDOse— that of making known the ' whereabouts ' of local 

 workers in Geology, and thereby enabhng persons to come into mutual communi- 

 cation who might otherwise never have heard of one another. But the system of 

 initial-signature shuts the door against all tliis. To take a case m pomt ; — one of 

 your early numbers contains a communication from a CoiTespondent at Harwich, 

 wilting for some local information, but having appended to it simply his initials. 

 Now, I am particularly interested in the Geology of Harwich, and most anxious 

 for coiTespondents in that district. Had the wiiter in this case given his name, 

 I dare say I could have been of service to him, and most likely he in return might 

 have helped me. When I became, in 1837, proprietor of Mr. Loudon's well 

 known ]Magaziiie of Natinal Histoiy, I found no difficulty in abolishing the initial 

 system, except in certain cases ; for every now and th$n there may be reasonable 

 grounds for writing incog. Of the inconvenience which may result from it, 

 the case of your Bristol coiTespondent, Mr. Higgins, who oflered to exchange 

 inferior Oohte Fossils, is a notable example. Edward Charlesworth, York." — 

 While we agxee with jir. Charlesworth as to the desirableness of coiTespondents 

 writing under their proper names, we also think it would not be right of us to 

 insist upon this point. Many of the questions m our "Notes and Queries" 

 department are without doubt very modestly asked, and yet, while they are really 

 highly useful to other students and beginners in the science, they are not imeom- 

 monly of such a simple character that many who ask them would be unT\ilhng to 

 put them publicly in their own names. To oui' prmcipal articles the names of the 

 writers are always put, miless we are expressly enjomed n ot to print them. We think, 

 however, that om- correspondents should enclose their cards with these anonymous 

 communications, that we might individually, in om' capacity of EcUtor, be enabled, 

 %vith the concuiTence of the respective parties, to place them in communication 

 with each other where desnable. It seems to us, moreover, that when geologists, 

 as in Mr. Chaiiesworth's case, desne further communication with any particular 

 correspondent wiitmg anonymously, or mider an initial, they might intimate then 

 ■v\ishes in another number of this jMagazine, or offer certain services, as was so 

 kmdly done by Mr. Sanders of Bristol, in reply to W. S. (Vol. I. p. 161). We deshe to 

 make this journal as useful as possible ; but the number of communications we 

 receive, of an anonymous character, evidently attests the existence of a feeling of 

 a ver)" general character. In respect to the " Notes" themselves, we concm- to the 

 fullest extent in the real advantage of the author's name being attached : the 

 fact of a note l)eing prmted at all in this jomiial suffices to acknowledge its worth, 

 and the suppression of the name of the person responsible for the fact stated is not 

 just to Science. 



Physical Geology of Weardale. — " Dear Sir, — I am living on the Car- 

 boniferous Formation, in a narrow valley cut down from the ]\[illstone-grit to the 

 Basalt, the depth of the valley being several hundred feet ; and, as I "am a most 

 ardent admner of Geology — in which science, however, I am only a tyi'O— I have 

 been led away often into a train of speculations seeking for a solution as to the 

 character of the forces that excavated this channel. I soon perceived that water 

 was the only agent ; but how was it employed ? Was it by the present stream, 

 by oceanic currents during submersion, or by the abrasion of waves when the sea 



