THE

GEOLOGICAL MAGAZINE

NEW SERIES. DECADE VI. VOL. VI.

No. VII.-JULY, 1919.

EDITORIAL NOTES.

N view of the interest aroused among geologists by the active political and press propaganda now in progress concerning the oil-borings in Derbyshire, it seemed advisable to publish forthwith the paper by Mr. V. C. Illing alluded to in our editorial last month. To do this necessitated the postponement of the second half of the paper on Potash by Dr. Holmes, begun in our June number, but Dr. Holmes has kindly consented to give precedence to his colleague in view of the urgency of the matter. Even by this arrangement the traditional balance of the Magazine has been somewhat upset, but the case is exceptional, and we do not intend to apologize for it. Our only concession is to cut down the editorial pages to a considerable extent, in order to prevent too much encroachment on the space allotted to reviews.

*

We are glad to note the election of Professor O. T. Jones, M.A., D.Sc., to the Professorship of Geology in the University of Manchester. Professor Jones graduated at Cambridge in 1902 and was subsequently awarded the Harkness Scholarship and the Sedgwick Prize; in 1903 he joined the Geological Survey of England, on which he served with distinction until 1910, when he was elected to the Professorship of Geology at University College, Aberystwyth. During his tenure of that chair he has discharged his duties with marked success and has published important papers on the Lower Palæozoic rocks of Wales. We wish him a prosperous career in his new position, where he will have increased opportunity to carry out geological work of various kinds.

NOTWITHSTANDING the demands made by the War on the United States National Museum, the report for the year ending June 30, 1918, gives a record of much progress. Apart from the activities connected directly with the War, such as the selection of suitable vesicular rocks for use in the construction of concrete ships, the provision of technical information to Intelligence Bureaux, and the satisfying of demands from such State Departments as the Bureau of Standards and the Department of Agriculture, much has been accomplished for the Museum itself. In connexion with the collection of minerals of importance for war materials, an exhibit worthy of note is that of the largest mass of tungsten ore yet mined a mass of scheelite weighing 2,614 pounds. Another notable addition is a collection of nearly ten thousand specimens

DECADE VI.-VOL. VI.-NO. VII.

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obtained by Dr. C. D. Walcott from the Middle Cambrian of Burgess Pass, British Columbia. From this locality also, a ton and a half of material was sent to the Museum as the result of last fieldseason's work. The quarry that yielded the best of the famous Middle Cambrian fossils is now practically exhausted. Details given of other results of the Museum's official "Explorations" show quite clearly the advantages that would accrue if corresponding features were organized in the big institutions of this country.

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So much unpublished information was accumulated by the Geological Survey of Western Australia, that the preparation of reports occupied a proportionately greater amount of the Staff's time than actual field-work (Annual Progress Report of the Geological Survey of Western Australia for 1917). This circumstance, combined with the fact that the activities of the Survey are becoming more and more of an economic nature, tend to show that some augmentation, in personnel at least, could be made with advantage. In addition to duties in the field and in the office, the Survey is conducting experiments on clays, potash minerals, etc., from which results of value to industry are expected. The Laboratory Report shows that highly satisfactory results are being attained; and in the year under review 1671 samples were registered, an increase of 20 per cent over the previous year. Among the results of the field-work recorded in the above-mentioned report, we read that wolfram, occurring as" floaters", has been found at a locality about 3 miles north of Grass Valley Township, on the Great Eastern Railway, east of Northam. The rocks in this neighbourhood are granitic, with a network of dolerite dykes; the surface is covered by a varying thickness of débris, which has prevented detailed mapping up to the present. It is thought that when the true matrix is discovered it will be a pegmatite.

THE election of Dr. Arthur Smith Woodward to the Presidency of the Linnean Society of London will be of great interest to geologists. Dr. Woodward filled the office of President of the Geological Society from 1914 to 1916, and has served a term as Vice-President of the Zoological Society.

I. THE SEARCH FOR SUBTERRANEAN "OIL-POOLS" IN THE BRITISH

IT

ISLES.

By V. C. ILLING, M.A., F.G.S.

(PLATE VII.)

[T is curious how readily the public misconceives even the most simple of scientific problems. A plausible theory, no matter how fallacious, will gain an immediate currency which it is difficult to undermine until it has run its course. Such theories do harm to the public, to industry, and to science, and they should be

SECTIONS ACROSS THE NORTHERN AND SOUTHERN OIL AND GAS-FIELDS OF PENNSYLVANIA.

vertical scale is exaggerated ten times. a, Permian; b, Pennsylvanian above Pittsburg Coal; c, d, Pennsylvanian below Pittsburg Coal; e, Mississippian (oil and gas); f, Upper Devonian (oil and gas); g, Middle Devonian. The sections illustrate the complete loss of oil and gas when the strata approach the eastern zone of folding.

combated rather than avoided, so that the mischief may be curtailed, if not entirely eliminated.

It is but a few years since the geologist and botanist were popularly regarded as mere dilettantes, dabblers in fossils and plants, harmless individuals with a craze for the useless. The recent problems of agriculture, timber, mineral resources, and water-supply have shown how essential are these sciences in the national economy, and the geologist and botanist have gained an assured place in industry beside the chemist and the physicist. This position implies responsibility of the collective body as well as of the individual, and it is becoming increasingly necessary that the opinion of organized science should be less inarticulate when matters in which it is interested become the subject of public discussion.

This is especially true of geology, the science directly concerned with the mineral wealth of the country, and no better example of this need can be found than the question recently raised of the possible occurrence of underground oil-pools in Great Britain. The subject is essentially a geological one, and the British School of Geologists holds no uncertain views about the project, yet these views have been completely overshadowed by the insistent utterances of a few individuals.

Geology is not an exact science. The personal factor looms so large in many of its problems that he must needs be hardy who dares to be positive, and inexperienced who considers his verdict a final solution. The paths of progress in geological thought are strewn with discarded theories, the working hypotheses of the individual in his search for truth. To confuse theory with fact, to pivot an immense industrial undertaking on the transitory opinions of a few individuals, when there is ample opportunity for a wider appeal, is poor policy. The appointment of a representative committee of scientists to discuss and report on the possibilities of finding commercial quantities of crude petroleum in the British Isles should have been a necessary preliminary to the whole undertaking.

In the maze of involved economic and political interests it is difficult and profitless to follow the drilling scheme from its inception to its adoption. Primarily it was essentially a war measure, a forlorn attempt caused by a desperate need, and to view it in any other light is to rob it of its main excuse for existence. To the geologist, however, the fact which matters is the problem itself, and the ultimate possibilities are sufficiently interesting to need no excuse for being intruded on the notice of the reader. It is obvious that the discovery of large pools of oil and gas in this country would be of great national importance. The mere possibility of success would be ample warrant for the public expenditure, but at the same time the problem should be examined with a calm discussion and judgment of facts to give pause to the wild hopes raised by the utterances of misguided optimism.

It is not difficult to surmise the main guiding principles which are being adopted in the present search for oil in Britain. The