GEOLOGICAL NOTES IN THE GREAT EXHIBITION. 
409 
entire skull) ; AmpJiicyon Laurinense (part of jaw) ; Siis cJiaroides (two 
portions of jaw) ; and several other interesting fossils are exhibited 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 ith some interest, not only 
in respect 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 would 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 tlie 
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 whicli 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 Wcmyss " coal," tlie Wigan 
" coal," and Boghead " coal " are simply misnomers ; and we cannot wonder 
that parties interested in the manufficture of paraffine should pass strong 
comments when 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 "TorbaneHillMineral," — theBoghead 
" coal " being the Torbane Hill Mineral dug from the portion of that shale- 
field leased by Mr. Gillespie 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 actualh/ samples of the articles 
used in the manufactures to which they are assumed to relate, although really 
anxious to view this important topic in a purely scientific light, as to the 
nature of the origin of the various commercial bituminous products, we 
reserve, at least for the present, our notes on the subject, to seek for the 
fullest information from every reliable quarter — not with any 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 investigate an unresolved problem, and to turn 
the knowledge he gets to the advantage or instruction of his race. 
VOL. V, 3 O 
