Address delivered at the anniversary meeting of the Geological Society of London, on the 21st of February, 1840 : and the announcement of the award of the Wollaston medal and donation fund for the same year / by the Rev. Professor Buckland.

  • William Buckland
Date:
1840
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Address delivered at the anniversary meeting of the Geological Society of London, on the 21st of February, 1840 : and the announcement of the award of the Wollaston medal and donation fund for the same year / by the Rev. Professor Buckland. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    SCHOOL OF MINES IN CORNWALL. Another proof of the direction of public attention to the col- lateral branches of our science has, within the last twelve months, been afforded by the establishment in Cornwall, of a school for the instruction in Sciences and Arts connected with Mining, of young men who are to be engaged in conducting the important subterra- nean operations of that county. The want of such a school had been pointed out by Mr, John Taylor, in his Prospectus of a School of Mines in Cornwall, February 7, 1825, and in his Records of Mining, published in 1829. It has at length been instituted chiefly through the exertions and at the expense of Sir Charles Lemon. This incipient school, and the University of Durham, form almost solitary examples in England, of such scientific establishments as are nearly universal in the mining districts of the Continent. The experiment has begun in Cornwall with Courses of Lectures in Mathematics, Mechanics, Chemistry, and Mineralogy, by three pro- fessors ; and a course of instruction, by a practical surveyor, in Al- gebra, Drawing, and the Use of instruments : and during the next year, still further additions are contemplated. POLYTECHNIC SOCIETY OF CORNWALL. To the zealous exertions of Sir Charles Lemon, and of manv intelligent and active individuals at Falmouth, the count} of Corn- wall is also indebted for the establishment of a Polytechnic Society, which, during the few years of its existence, has been attended with extraordinary success. One of its chief objects is to encou- rage, by rewards, the invention and improvement of machinery, of which so large an amount is essential to the working of the mines Another object is to collect materials for expressing the quantity and value of the mineral and other produce of the county ; and to con- struct tables indicating the diminished longevity, and diseases, which, in a peculiar degree, affect the Cornish miners, and do not prevail amongst those employed in Collieries. It appears, from a paper published in the Sixth Annual Report of this Society (1839), that the average duration of a miner’s life is less, by many years, than that of the agricultural labourer in the same district; the ap- parent causes of this frightful evil being the inevitably imperfect B
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