186 



THE GEOLOGIST. 



and brilliant enouoli to give a lustre even to the cheek of beauty." "With 

 the assistance of a ground-plan of colliery workings, Mr. Wood explained 

 the wonders of a pit, with its upcast shaft, its downcast shaft, its furnaces, 

 engines, its cages and its levels, the wonderful and yet simple history of 

 its ventilation, Vhe mode of winning the coal, the colliers as they worked. 

 It is the habit too much, the lecturer said, to blame colliery proprietors for 

 carelessness. He believed that great and vigilant care was used, if not 

 alone from the sense of right and duty yet at all events from the fear of 

 accidents, which were destructive to property in a manner ruinous in the 

 extreme. Legislative interference was, he believed, too much and some- 

 what ignorantly asked for. Our colliery population Mr. Wood estimated 

 at l,5dO,r?00, of whom 400,000 were men and boys actually employed in 

 the pits. Mr. Wood described most feelingly and eloquently the daring 

 and endurance of the men who, day after day, worked purely from the love 

 for their fellow-men, to rescue their poor comrades at the late accident at 

 Hartley. He then detailed with most engaging particularity the objects 

 to be seen within the collier's cottage, throughout which there was m.ar- 

 vellous, almost painful, neatness and cleanliness. The collier's wife never 

 thinks of reducing her fire ; her room is always at a roastifig temperature ; 

 and when at last nature can no longer stand it, she opens the door, and 

 this constantly, be it winter or summer. Mr. Wood concluded his lecture 

 with some very amusing anecdotes. 



Manchester Geological Society. — February 25. — The propriety of 

 forming a local fund for the relief of widows dependent upon coal-miners 

 killed or hurt, was the subject of some discussion. The papers read 

 were : — 1. " On Mr. Aytoun's Patent Safety Cage for Miners." By Mr. 

 J. J. Landale, Mining Engineer, Edinburgh. 2. " On the Gases met 

 with in Coal-Mines, and the General Principles of Ventilation." By J. J. 

 Atkinson, Esq., H. M. Inspector of Mines for the South Durham district. 



Liverpool Geological Society. — March 2Uh. — The president, 

 Henry Duckworth, F.L.S., F.G.S., read a paper "On Flint Implements 

 from the Drift ; being a description of a visit to Amiens and Abbeville 

 during the summer of 1861." 



Mr. Duckworth did not discover any worked flints himself, but he exhi- 

 bited several very characteristic specimens, some of them being obtained 

 from the quarrymen, and others presented to him by Monsieur Boucher 

 de Perthes and Monsieur Pinsard. Mr. Duckworth also exhibited a 

 human skull, which he disinterred from the brick-earth bed, in what was 

 stated to be a somewhat unusual position. The paper was illustrated by 

 drawings of sections, etc. In conclusion, Mr. Duckworth remarked that 

 in examining these Drift beds both at Amiens and Abbeville, but more 

 especially at the former place, it seemed to him that they must have been 

 dei)osited very rapidly. There is no evidence whatever, so far as he could 

 judge, of any very slow or gradual formation; and the impression left 

 upon his mind was that they have been produced by some sharp and 

 sudden catastrophe. 



" On the Strata of the Storeton Quarries, near Liverpool." By G. H. 

 Morton, F.G.S. 



After referring to tlie Keuper formation as it occurs near the town of 

 Liverpool, the strata of Storeton (in Cheshire) were described as belonging 

 to the lower part of that forinntion. The base is a conglomerate, several 

 feet thick; strata of while and yellow sandstone with several beds of 

 shale and marl succeed, the thickness altogether being about 200 feet. 

 A bout 130 feet from the base of the formation there "is a bed or band 

 of sandstone, thiee feet thi.k. v»ith two or three seams of marl, and 



