GEOLOGICAL NOTES IS TilE GllEAT EXlilBlTIOV. 



409 



entire skull) ; AmpJdci/on Laurinens'e (part of jaw) ; Sus cliaroides (two 

 portions of jaw) ; and several other interesting fossils are cxliibited in the 

 Italian department. 



The following tables of the number, produce, and working staffs of the 

 Austrian coal-mines, eliminated from the minute details given by the 

 Austrian Geological Survey, will be viewed with some interest, not only 

 in res))ect to the various manufactures which of late years have been 

 carried on at the expense of coal proper, but in respect also to the total 

 quantity raised in comparison with the annual enormous yield of our own 

 coal-fields. 



It \^ ould have been a most interesting thing to have worked out minutely 

 the comparative values of the various kinds of bituminous minerals in 

 respect to manufactures ; but the absence of any official or reliable infor- 

 mation renders such a task very difficult, while the carelessness of labelling 

 of some exhibitors, and, we almost fear, the intentional obscurities of the 

 specimens of others, leave so many chances of error to any writer attempt- 

 ing to deal with the Exhibition samples of this class as would make the 

 boldest and most anxious votaries of science hesitate to go fully into the sub- 

 ject. The comparative values of bituminous shales and coals proper in the 

 actual commercial manufacture of paraffine, the origin of rock-oil, whether 

 the latter is of the same age as the beds which contain it, or whether such 

 beds from a peculiar basin-like condition are only mere receptacles of a 

 product of very various dates of formation, are all interesting questions. 

 The effect of former litigations on the first very important topic is still 

 most bitterly felt in the retardation and obscuring of a subject of real 

 scientific and commercial importance ; while the still common careless or 

 wilful misuse of the term " coal " — a secondary consequence also of that 

 baneful influence — disfigures the writings and arguments of some of our 

 eminent geologists, and leads to the utmost confusion in the public as to 

 the real nature of the minerals which are truly serviceable for that and 

 various other manufactures. The true type of coal is undoubtedly " New- 

 castle coal :" the so-called cannel " coals," the Wemyss " coal," tlie Wigan 

 *' coal," and Boghead " coal " are simply misnomers ; and we cannot wonder 

 that parties interested in the manufacture of paraffine should pass strong 

 comments ^^hen they see samples of one thing exhibited under the name 

 of another, as Mr. Campbell has done in the last number of the ' Mining 

 Journal,' on the sample exhibited by Mr. James Young, of Bathgate. And 

 certainly with respect to that gentleman's specimen of " Boghead Coal," — 

 another name only for the memorable "Torbane Hill Mineral," — theBoghead 

 " coal " being the Torbane Hill ]\Iineral dug from the portion of that shale- 

 field leased by Mr. Grillespie to the Messrs. liussell of litigation notoriety, — 

 it does indeed bear no resemblance to that substance, of which some hundred- 

 weights of specimens have passed through our hands as the substance from 

 which the Bathgate paraffine was made. In the foreign courts the same ob- 

 scure use of the term " coal " is so common, that, combined with the absence 

 of any proofs that the samples exhibited are actualhi samples of the articles 

 used in the manufactures to which they are assumed to relat(\ 'iltliongh really 

 anxious to view this im])ortant topic in a purely scienlijic as to tiio 



nature of the origin of the various commercial bituminous products, we 

 reserve, at least for the present, our notes on the subject, to S(>ek for the 

 fullest information from every reliable quarter — not ithany view, and still 

 less any wish, to enter into or bring up again a controversy the embers 

 of which it is evident are still burning, but from the desire which a man of 

 science naturally feels to iuvestigaU^ an unresolved ]n'oblem, and to turn 

 the knowledge he gets to the advantage or instruct ion of his*rac(>. 



VOL. V. o (} 



