174 MEXDIP NOTES. 



" A little east of the lane " (between Easton and Priddy), 

 we read in the Survey Memoir (p. 30), " near the bend, there 

 is a shallow hole, apparently a trial shaft, from which black 

 Carbonaceous Shales have been obtained, and which, no 

 doubt, are beds belonging to the Millstone Grit." 



Farther down the valley is another much more recent pit. 

 Of it, Messrs. Bristow and H. B. Woodward write {Geological 

 Magazine^ vol. viii., p. 501, 1871): "We were astonished, 

 when paying a visit to the spot in October, to find a shaft 

 was being sunk in search of coal in the Lower Limestone 

 Shales, which had evidently been passed through, inasmuch 

 as the rock then brought to the surface was Old Red Sand- 

 stone. The fragments of Carbonaceous shale in the old 

 trial-shaft had probably misled the prosecutors of the second 

 undertaking to suppose that the coal-measures were present, 

 and that lower down in a southerly direction, they would be 

 likely to succeed in finding coal. 



" A more unpromising j^lace for finding coal could scarcely 

 have been selected an3'"where in the neighbourhood, for the 

 spot where the shaft was being sunk is closely surrounded 

 on all sides by rocks of greater age than the Coal-measures ; 

 in fact, the little valley in which the works were being 

 carried on may, in general terms, be described as two narrow 

 strips of Lower Limestone Shale and Old Red Sandstone a 

 few chains wide, and surrounded by higher ground composed 

 of Mountain Limestone. The sinking of this shaft under 

 such manifestly hopeless conditions shows a want of know- 

 ledge of the elements of geology and coal-mining that could 

 scarcely be supposed to exist in the present day on the part 

 of persons likely to embark in a search for coal within five 

 miles of a cathedral city." 



There is a touch of irony in the fact that those who thus 

 spoke of the blunders of others should in the same para- 

 graph have committed a more serious blunder themselves. 



