CONTENTS.-No. XLIV. ON THE PROBABLE EXISTENCE OF COAL MEASURES IN THE SOUTH- ... ... ... ... ... PAGE 225 244 BUD VARIATION. By Maxwell T. Masters, M.D., F.R.S. REVIEWS:- 257 Man's Origin―The Fallacies of Darwinism-Air and Rain-Miller's Astronomy-Botany and Vegetable Physiology — Chemistry No notice can be taken of anonymous contributions. Contributors must write their names and addresses on the first page of MS. If accompanied with stamps, unsuitable manuscripts will always be carefully returned. The Editor does not hold himself identified with the opinions expressed in contributions. All communications to the Editor are to be addressed to 192 Piccadilly. Articles in the POPULAR SCIENCE REVIEW are Copyright, and the Right of Translation is Reserved. THIS Lamp is offered to Microscopists as thoroughly efficient, and yet very moderate in price. It embraces all the latest improvements, and is furnished with HAILE'S Porcelain Shade, which, while shielding the observer's eyes from the glare of the Lamp, acts as a reflector to increase the brilliancy of the illumination. The glass reservoir is shallow, so that the paraffin rises freely and feeds the wick regularly. The reservoir rotates in the arm B, so that the flat or edge side of the flame can be used. The shade can be adjusted to a proper position as regards the flame by sliding up or down the arm D, and the Lamp fixed at any required height by the clamping screw C. As the tube E carries the tube D, when the Lamp and shade are properly adjusted the whole may be raised or depressed without deranging that adjustment by sliding up or down the arm B. The brass wickmount is hinged, so that the gallery or chimney can be turned back to facilitate turning and lighting. BARKER'S IMMERSION PARABOLA, For dark ground illumination, with high powers, giving effects hitherto unattainable. Price £1. 11s. 6d. ACKLAND'S NEUTRAL TINT SELENITE STAGE. This neutral tint is exceedingly delicate in action, as its colour is varied by the slightest depolarising influence of the object under examination, and will be found to give a display of colours to objects (requiring the use of the Selenite) more varied and gorgeous than can be obtained by any of the usual colours employed, and at the same time the mere rotation of one or other of the films will give a succession of nearly all the prismatic colours, so that the observer, if dissatisfied with the neutral tint, can produce and test a multiplicity of others, and note the effect of each with the special object under examination. Price 15s., or with an extra film, so as to produce the entire series of Prismatic Tints, 18s. 6d. Illustrated Catalogue of Microscopes and accessories sent on receipt of Two Stamps. MANUFACTURED BY HORNE & THORNTHWAITE 122 & 123 NEWGATE STREET, LONDON, E.C 225 ON THE PROBABLE EXISTENCE OF COAL MEASURES IN THE SOUTH-EAST OF ENGLAND. BY JOSEPH PRESTWICH, F.R.S., F.G.S. [PLATE LXXXV.] HE question of discovering coal in the south-east of Enga mouter, st of land, so long treated in an empirical manner, has of late years assumed a scientific aspect, but in a direction entirely different from that towards which practice pointed. So many of our Tertiary and Secondary strata contain thin beds of lignite and shale, together with beds of sandstone-the first sometimes not unlike impure coal, and the latter resembling the shales and sandstones of the Coal Measures-that it is not surprising that men, ignorant of scientific modes of investigation, and at a period when geology was little understood, should have been misled by resemblance of parts into a belief of identity of the whole. But the progress of geology has since conclusively shown that although certain beds of lignite of Miocene and Wealden age may be worked for such purposes as lime-burning, and some beds of fair coal are wrought in the Oolites, as at Brora in Sutherlandshire, yet to all practical intent the beds of good and workable coal are confined to certain strata, known as the Coal Measures, forming the upper part of the paleozoic series of rocks, the position of which is perfectly well defined, and the organic remains of which serve to render their determination a matter of certainty. The imperfect lignites of our tertiary strata around London; the lignites and sandstones of our Wealden area; the clays of the Jurassic series, have all at times given rise to the search after coal in the strata far above the Coal Measures; while the sandstones of the Devonian and the shales of the Silurian series have given rise to equally abortive attempts amongst the rocks under the true coal measures, even up to a recent period, by so-called practical men. Aubry gives a curious account of one of these searches after coal, made in the neighbourhood of Guildford, at the end of |