DATE OF W. FAIRLEY'S "PRACTICAL OBSERVATIONS ON THE SOUTH WALES COALFIELD"

Abstract

W. Faieley's Practical Observations on the South Wales Coalfield consists of 34 folio pages of text and 28 plates and diagrams plus a supplementary diagram by W. T. Lewis, Esq., Mining Engineer to the Marquis of Bute's Trustees . Four of the diagrams are folders and five are coloured—apparently by hand, for both the colours and the registration differ from one copy to another. It seems to be rare as a separate work and is not in the libraries of the British Museum (Natural History) or the Geological Society of London. No date appears on the title-page of the copy in the library of the Institute of Geological Sciences, but 1869 was written in pencil by Charles Victor Crook, librarian from 1895 to 1929. D. A. Bassett (1961), Bibliography and Index of Geology and Allied Sciences for Wales and the Welsh Borders, 1536-1896 , p. 60, gives the date as circa 1869 . The copy in the British Museum library has been assigned the date 1870, simply because it was deposited in that year. The work was published by W. M. Hutchings, Colliery Guardian Office, 5, Bouverie Street, Fleet Street, E.C.. Through the kindness of Mr. Hathway, of the CoUiery Guardian office, I was allowed to examine the early bound volumes of the Colliery Guardian in his charge; my colleague, Mr. MurrayMitchell, kindly examined the volumes in the British Museum Newspaper Library at Colindale. Fairley's work was evidently issued with successive parts of the Colliery Guardian in 1868, although the two sets examined are not in complete agreement, as the following tables show: