Witham's localities on the Tweed remained practically unvisited until Mr Kidston re-explored them eight or nine years ago, with brilliant success--the results, however, are still unpublished. * * * * * Edward William Binney, the first investigator of the Lancashire coal-balls, was born at Morton in Nottinghamshire in 1812, and was thus only four years senior to Williamson. He settled in Manchester in 1836, and practised as a solicitor. He early showed scientific tastes; the Manchester Geological Society was started, chiefly by his influence, in October 1838. He was concerned in the discovery of the famous St Helen's trees, which first proved the connection between _Sigillaria_ and _Stigmaria_. "Binney completed the proof that all coal-seams rest on old soils which are constituted entirely of vegetable matter; this was the seat-stone of a seam of coal" (Robert Hunt). He gave up the practice of Law, and, devoting himself to science, became a leading authority on northern geology, and rendered important aid to the Geological Survey by his long experience of the coal-fields of Lancashire and Cheshire. He assisted in the discovery of the Torbane Hill mineral or Boghead Cannel, a deposit once notorious as a subject of litigation, and more recently as a bone of scientific contention. Binney died on December 19, 1881. Etheridge said of him: "He was a man of the highest honour and remarkably outspoken; his sturdiness and strength of character being rarely equalled." Binney was the discoverer of some now famous fossils, notably _Dadoxylon_ (now _Lyginodendron_) _oldhamium_, and _Stauropteris oldhamia_. His best known work is the monograph, _Observations on the Structure of Fossil Plants_, in four parts, published for the Palaeontographical Society, from 1868 to 1875. Thus his work on coal-plants overlapped that of Williamson. The first part is on _Calamites_ and _Calamodendron_--the names are used in the old sense, for Binney kept up Brongniart's distinction, though apparently not convinced of its validity. In this memoir he described the "cone of _Calamodendron commune_," now known as _Calamostachys Binneyana_. Part II, on _Lepidostrobus_ and some allied cones, is remarkable for the demonstration of heterospory in several species. Part III, on _Lepidodendron_, deals partly with stems referred to _L. Harcourtii_, but now separated as _L. fuliginosum_. He also describes the structure of a _Halonia_ and is led to the conclusion that it is the root of _Lepidodendron_. This view has not found favour, but our old ideas about _Ulodendron_ and _Halonia_ have been so upset of late, that everything seems possible! Part IV is on _Sigillaria_ and _Stigmaria_, the "_Sigillaria_" described being _S. vascularis_, since identified with _Lepidodendron selaginoides_, or _L. vasculare_, if we maintain Binney's specific name.