96 
THE GEOLOGIST. 
160. The mine worked is generally supposed to be identical witli the 
Eushby 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 geological interest in 
connection ^ ith the mine, more than is usually met with in coal-mines. 
We ^ndi Anthracomi/cp 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 strata 
are broken up, and that the coal and other measures are often foimd the 
same on each side of the fault-vein. Suppose a fault is met with. It is 
easily kno^A n 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 oftener rises to it. But supposing you arrive, without any 
previous indication, at a fault, the direction is generally known by the way 
in whic-h the strise, or two sides of the fault-vein, commonly called the 
" slippy partings," point. If a down fault is met with, the direction is away 
from you s 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 JS'ew Pit has called forth the sympathy of 
almost every subject within the British realms, and appears at the present 
time to be exciting the minds 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 
affects 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. 
rOEEIGN INTELLIGENCE. 
The Whales of the Antwerp Ceag were made by M, Van Beneden 
the subject of his most interesting address at the last public sitting of the 
Belgian Academy, in which he gave a sketch of the important paleontological 
discoveries made during the recent excavations in the fortifications of Ant- 
werp, and illustrated the subject by the interesting information he had ac- 
quired in a recent travel in Germany for the purpose of elucidating the 
history of the numerous fossil cetaceans that have been found in the soil of 
the environs of Antwerp. Drawing a comparison of the riches of the 
Musee Bourbon of Naples in its treasures of antiquities from Herculaneum 
and Pompeii, 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 roar lions, tigers, and bears in cages barred with iron, in times of 
