and their Relatw?i to the modern System of Geology, 4:7 



measures decline rapidly to the S.E. ; but in traversing the 

 lower grounds, where the greater portion of them have been 

 actually proved, by boring, to lie in regular stratified order, 

 they dip but about five inches in the yard to the above point 

 of the compass. In regard to the quantity of coal, I may 

 adduce the single fact of the vestigia of certain of its conco- 

 mitants, of considerable thickness (say from three to eighteen 

 feet), proved in the deep, being found throughout the whole 

 of the longitudinal line of the bassets, bearing a propor- 

 tion short of the coal vestigia there scattered. Reasoning 

 from this fact*, in conjunction with coexisting evidence, it is 

 demonstrable to a certainty that the latter are portions of 

 a very considerable and valuable stratum of coal, occupying 

 its individual station, as a part of the mass of stratification 

 partially explored, and whose bassets, or vestigia, were evi- 

 dently deposited at the same period and by similar means. 

 As a concurrent proof that these vestigia have been carried 

 but an extremely short distance from their respective beds, 

 I need only remind the initiated (who are aware of the ex- 

 traordinary chafing or decomposing power which impetuous 

 waters exert upon some of even the hardest minerals brought 

 from any distance) that the various freestones, shales, coal, 

 &c., found at the crop, are not in the slightest degree worn by 

 attrition : even of the binds, which are of an extremely friable, 

 tender, and sol uble nature, I have numerous specimens, whose 

 angles and asperities are of the most acute description. 



About 400 yards beyond the first basset another coal 

 appears to the day ; which, in some places, has been discovered 

 two feet thick, and also accompanied by its immediate con- 



* An exactly analogous line of coal vestigia, and all its concomitants, 

 varying from about 10 yds. to 30 yds. wide, traverses the new Leicester- 

 shire coalfield, in a direction due N.E. and S. W. ; which vestigia are 

 thrown up to the surface through the red marl formation; a very con- 

 siderable thickness of which entirely conceals the superficies of the sub- 

 strata (carboniferous) over a great extent of country. The important cha- 

 racters of these bassets were first noticed, examined, and appreciated by 

 Mr. Williamson (an experienced practical coal discoverer and miner), who, 

 placing that implicit confidence in them which experience in exactly similar 

 evidence (or laws of nature) had taught him to entertain, was thereby 

 encouraged to persevere in a long and tedious trial (by boring) for coal in 

 Bagworth Lordship (made a few hundred yards to the west of the above 

 line), which, after penetrating through about 103 yards of red marl, ulti- 

 mately led to the discovery of the vast stores of coals now working there • 

 and other collieries subsequently opened in the immediate vicinity. Ac- 

 companied by Mr. Williamson, the discoverer of the above coalfield, I have 

 recently traced and very minutely examined the, aforenamed carboniferous 

 bassets, and found them, in everi/ peculiar and essential character , precisely 

 analogous to those which traverse this district. 



