552 



THE GEOLOGIST. 



It was found from the careful inspection of the various coal measures, that in 

 England the western portions appear to present mechanical indications, whilst 

 the eastern portions seemed more to indicate chemical action. In the New 

 World precisely the reverse was the case, the chemical action being evident in 

 the west, and the mechanical in the east. Passing to the European continent, 

 he referred to the small coal fields of Belgium, to the three principal deposits 

 in France, to the fields of Spain and Portugal ; and then returning eastward 

 explained the formation of the Prussian and Bohemian coal fields, and 

 described the rich deposits of braunkohle which extends across the German 

 continent. 



After a brief reference to the coal fields of Africa, discovered by Br. Living- 

 stone, he passed into Asia, and described the deposits of coal in India, and 

 then proceeded through Borneo, Lebuan, &c, southward, concluding his re- 

 marks on the Old World by describing the coals of New South Wales, Tas- 

 mania, and New Zealand. The survey of the New World was commenced by 

 a reference of the coal fields and Albertite deposits of the British possessions 

 in North America. Then the great coal fields of the United States were de- 

 scribed, and the subject completed by a brief explanation of the nature and 

 extent of the deposits about Chili and Valparaiso. 



On the conclusion of the lecture there was an interesting discussion, in 

 w^ich Messrs. Rickard, T. Rupert Jones, Mackie, Lawson, and Prof. 

 Tennant, took part, and Prof. Morris replied to a large number of ques- 

 tions, but declined, in answer to the interrogatories of Messrs. Lawson and 

 Mackie to state any opinion on the nature of original formation of those highly 

 interesting substances Albertite and the Torbane Hill mineral. 



The President announced that during the session excursions would be made 

 to Tunbridge Wells or Hastings, Harwich, Cambridge, or Lewes. 



Cambridge Philosophical Society. — October 28. At the annual general 

 meeting of this society, after the election of officers, a paper was read by Mr. 

 Harry Seeley " On the Een-clay Formation." 



Extending under the peat of the fen district, and far beyond, is the great 

 clay formation. It includes the Oxford and Kimmeridge clays, and an inter- 

 vening clay (replacing the Coral rag) which imperceptibly graduates upwards 

 and downwards into these deposits. It is for this series of strata, ranging from 

 the Great Oolite to the Portlandian beds, that the term Pen-clay or Pen-forma- 

 tion is proposed. The fact of such a succession in some degree interferes with 

 existing views of the division of the lower secondary strata into Upper, Middle, 

 and Lower Oolites ; so that henceforth it will probably be found more con 

 venient to abandon those terms, and to speak of the secondary formations 

 below the Cretaceous series, as Lias, Inferior Oolite, Great Oolite, Een-clay, 

 and Portland-bed. In -this district the Een-clay extends from the line of 

 Peterborough to Bedford, across easterly to the line of Ely and Lynn, within 

 which limits it has been chiefly studied, though known to have an extensive 

 development further south. 



The various sub-divisions were worked out in the country around Elsworth, 

 near St. Ives. The village is built on a limestone, to which it gives a name, 

 The Elsworth Rock, which consists of three sub-divisions, an upper and lower 

 rock, and a middle clay which abounds in Ostra MarsMi. The rock dips to the 

 south, and maintains its thickness (fourteen feet) unchanged for the three 

 miles over which it could be traced, though at that distance the middle clay is 

 replaced by sandstone. 



Passing to the north, another rock is met with, at St. Ives, and this was 

 shown to be 130 feet below the Elsworth Rock, coming out from under it, 

 being brought up by an anticinal axis, so that further to the north, at Blun- 

 tisham, the Elsworth rock is again met with. The St, Ives rock dips to the 



