96 



THE GEOLOGIST. 



]60 The mine worked is generally supposed to be identical with the 

 Ptushby Park of St. Helens, the Arley of Wigan, and the Eoyley of Old- 

 ham, '^The Hagside Pit is 760 yards to the deep of the one that adjoins 

 the railway ; being 280 yards in depth to the coal, and 300 to the bottom 

 of the sump-hole. There is nothing of particular geolo.gical interest in 

 connection ^ith the mine, more than is usually met with in coal-mines. 

 We find Anthracomyce in a layer, about four inches above the coal ; and in 

 the strata between 'the "two-feet coal" and the main bed, the author 

 had seen several good specimens of Sigillaria. These strata vary from 

 three feet to seven yards in thickness. The average thickness of the mine 

 worked is four feet six inches. In giving his opinion on the proving of 

 faults, the author confined his remarks to the kind commonly met with in 

 the Lancashire coal-field. The faults generally met with in this county 

 are dislocations, whether they are large or small ones ; that is, the sti-ata 

 are broken up, and that the coal and other measures are often fonnd the 

 game on each side of the fault-vein. Suppose a fault is met with. It is 

 easily known whether it is a down- or up-throw ; if the former, the coal 

 not unfrequently dips a little, for a short distance, before you arrive at it ; 

 if the latter, it O'tteuer rises to it. But supposing you arrive, without any 

 previous indication, at a fault, the direction is generally known by the way 

 in which the stria?, or two sides of the fault-vein, commonl}- called the 

 slippy partings," point, If a down fault is met with, the direction is away 

 from you ; if up, you touch the vein first at the floor of the place where 

 you are driving. 



2. The Ventilation of Mines." Mr. Joseph Goodwin. As the recent 

 catastrophe at the Hartley ISTew Pit has called forth the sympathy of 

 almost every subject within the British realms, and aj)pears at the present 

 time to be exciting the mmds of all engaged in the trade, the author thought 

 it was not out of place to consider how far it is safe to trust to a bratticed 

 shaft for ventilating coal-mines. The system of working a colliery with 

 only one shaft presents an unfavourable aspect, viewed from whatever 

 point it may be ; but probably the system is more at fault, in so far as it 

 afl'ects the ventilation of a colliery worked upon this principle, and the 

 risk to which it exposes both employer and employed, than if viewed from 

 any other point. The author denounced this system through a thorough 

 conviction that it not only immeasurably increases the risk to both employer 

 and employed, but that, pecuniarily considered, no real advantage occurs 

 from it of working a colliery. 



FOEEIGIS^ INTELLIGENCE. 



The Whales of the Antwerp Ceag were made bv M. Tan Beneden 

 tlic suhjoct of his most interesting address at the last i3ubiic sitting of the 

 Belgian Academy, in which he gave a sketch of the important paleontolodcal 

 discoveries niado during the recent excavations in the fortifications of Ant- 

 werp, and ilhistrated the subject by the interesting information he had ac- 

 quired in a recent travel in Germ'any for the purpose of elucidating the 

 liistory of t lie numerous fossil cetaceans that have been found in the soil of 

 tlio onvmMia of Antwerp. Drawing a comparison of the riches of the 

 Miisoe Bourbon of Naples in its treasures of antiquities from Herculaueum 

 and 1 ompen. with the fossil treasures of Antwerp, he proceeded to narrate 

 the geological history of that district. " At the very place," he said, " where 

 to-day i-ojir lious, tigers, and bears in cages barred ^ith ii'on, in times of 



