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THE QUESTION OF WORKABLE
course of a year or two may lead to the secession of a considerable
number of members, and consequently to a serious diminution of
income. New accessions may possibly revive it, but a museum must
cost as much in adversity as in prosperity, or be got rid of entirely.
A thinner volume of Transactions may be published and money
saved in that way, but such savings are a very common cause of
renewed secessions, the publication of Transactions being a primary
object of the society and the establishment of a museum a secondary
one—if that. And in its most prosperous times the income of a
local society consists of an amount which leaves it no surplus after
the expenses of its evening meetings and excursions have been met,
and its Transactions have been issued in a creditable form. For the
numbers of persons in any district who become members of
Naturalists' Societies is very limited, and varies largely with the
amount of subscription required, as may be learned from a glance at
the list of the Corresponding Societies of the British Association.
In short, while the fact that a local society usually comprises
almost all the local collectors makes it the best possible body for the
formation of a museum, its small income, which is necessarily devoted
almost entirely to other objects, makes it utterly incompetent to
maintain one. It is, therefore, most gratifying to learn that the
County Council of Dorset has given giants directly to three local
museums on the simple condition that they should be open to the
public free on one day in the week, and that the Government
auditor has apparently not objected to this grant.
T. V. Holmes.
THE QUESTION OF WORKABLE COAL
MEASURES BENEATH ESSEX.1
By the Rev. A. IRVING, D.Sc., F.G.S., Vicar of Hockerill.
IN dealing with this question, a few preliminary and general con-
siderations may perhaps be necessary, in order that a fairly
clear idea may be gained of the place of the Coal Measures in
the geological history of this globe by other than students of geology.
While this earth was yet young, but had so far cooled down from
the conditions of a glowing star that the greater part of the aqueous
vapour of its primordial atmosphere had been condensed upon the
1 This article is reprinted from the "Herts and Essex Observer,'' of July 14th, 1894, by th e
kind permission of Messrs. Mardon Bros., the proprietors, and Dr. Irving.—Ed.