312 



THE GEOLOGIST. 



seen, but not of o;reat thickness or good quality. Then the " rough rock," 

 with the Feather-edge coal, 14 to 16 inches thick, lying imbedded in its 

 upper portion. AboVe this were the "Foot Coal," the "Salts," and tlie 

 "Spanish Juice" seams. The " Gannister " coal was next met, 5 feet 6 

 inches in thickness, and containing " bullions " in the coal, the same as tlie 

 Spaw Clough, Town Head, and Carry Heyes Mines of Burnley, with 

 nodules in the black shales of the roof full of Aviculopectens, Goniafitcs, 

 etc. About ten yards above is a small seam of a few inches, and tlien comes 

 the "forty yards coal," twenty inches in thickness, with a fire-clay floor 

 worked for bricks and tiles ; further up is another small seam of a few 

 inches, and then the upper or " Old Lawrence " series of flagstones. To 

 the left of the quarry, the strata are thrown up by a fault of fully a 

 hundred yards, and the E-ochdale coal is wrought by a tunnel through it. 



The Moor was then crossed near the Flag Quarry ; the party next 

 passing the fine cliffs of "rough rock" above Portsmouth. In the 

 valley a cutting of the Burnley Railway has exposed an interesting section 

 of some of the Brooksbottom coal measures, showing a small fault ; and 

 beyond Messrs. Fielden's mill some old workings in the Gannister coal, 

 which is there brought up by a fault of 400 to 500 yards cast, were seen. 



2. " Communications respecting Safety Lamps." By Mr. C. Bass, and 

 Messrs. J. Abbott and Co. 



3. " Descriptions of Water-Balance Machines used for Winding Coal, 

 Ironstone, etc., in South Wales." By J. Evans, Esq., Inspector of Mines 

 for South Wales. 



4. " Explanation of Model of New Safety Cage for Miners." By the 

 President. 



Mr. Farrimond exhibited a specimen of Sternhergia, and a rounded 

 piece of white quartz, found in the centre of the Lower Mountain Mine, 

 Dunkenhalgh Park, near Church. Mr. Binney remarked that these pebbles 

 were once thought to be rare in coal, and in twenty years he had found 

 but two of them ; but from Dunkenfield Mr. Dickinson and Mr. Ray had 

 brought a barrowful, and those were now in the Society's Museum. 

 A valuable collection of fossil fish from South America was presented to 

 the Society by Mr. Eddowes Bowman. 



NOTES AND QUEEIES. 



Anthracite in Silurian Eocks. — In the abstract of the lecture " On 

 Coal " at the Eoyal Institution, printed in our last number, Mr. Waring- 

 ton Smyth is stated to have discovered anthracite coal at Laxey Mine in 

 the midst of ancient schists, probably Lower Silurian. 



This is not the first case of the observation of seams of bituminous 

 matter in strata older than the coal-measures. We have long had by us a 

 pamphlet on the occurrence of anthracite in the Silurian strata of Cavan, 

 by Dr. Whifcty, of Dublin, who brought that instance under the notice of 

 the British Association and the Dublin Geological Society, in 1854. In 

 that year, Dr. Whitty visited the townland of Xill, a mile west of Kilna- 

 leek, in Cavan. The rock throughout the district he describes as belong- 

 mg to the " Grauwacke Slate formation,', having an average strike of 

 57° E.W.E. (true meridian), and a dip at the place in question 80° S.E. 

 " This," he says, " is not the true coal-formation, as every geologist knows, 

 yet a bed of soft anthracite or culm occurs here, about four feet in thick- 



