COAL UNDER SOUTH-EASTERN ENGLAND. 143 



(700 feet in thickness) at i,i 13 feet from the surface,^ and in our own 

 district an association has been formed for investigating the 

 question. The " Eastern Counties Coal-Boring and Development 

 Association " was started to raise funds to make borings 

 in various parts of the Eastern Counties, for " the purpose 

 of ascertaining the position of the Coal seams, which, in the 

 opinion of experts, almost certainly exist in East Anglia, and also 

 to open up and develop the same." Under the auspices of the 

 Association, Ur. J. E. Taylor has delivered several very instruc- 

 tive lectures, and in " The East Anglian Daily Times " and 

 other newspapers popular articles on the subject have appeared 

 from time to time, proving the interest which the public is now 

 taking in this important question. Shares equal to about ;;^5,ooo 

 have already been subscribed for the purpose of the proposed opera- 

 tions, which will be commenced during the ensuing autumn. The 

 recently-published account of the discovery of Palaeozoic rocks (of 

 somewhat doubtful age) at Culford, near Bury St. Edmunds, 

 at a depth of only 637^ feet, has doubtless quickened the 

 desire for experimental borings in the Eastern Counties.- The 

 association has obtained permission from the Tendring Hundred 

 Water Company to use an abandoned bore-hole which was put 

 down at Bradfield in Essex on the southern bank of the Stour, nine 

 miles west from Harwich. This bore goes to the depth of 

 463 feet, and could be deepened to a further 500 feet at a small 

 expense. More recently, we understand, a tender has been accepted 

 for an experimental boring to be commenced forthwith, atStutton, in 

 Suffolk. Stutton is on the north bank of the Stour, eight miles south 

 of Ipswich, seven miles north-west of Harwich, and three miles 

 south-east of Bentley Station on the Great Eastern Railway. The 

 boring operations are to commence on the estate of Mr. Wm. Isaac 

 Graham, one of the principal landowners of the parish. Mr. Holmes, 

 Dr. J. E. Taylor, and Mr. Whitaker, have been advising the Associa- 

 tion, and the two reports which are here given were prepared to 



1 It was stated in " The East Anglian Daily Times," of April 29th, 1803, that a " few of the 

 plants from the Coal Measures found in the Dover boring are now on exhibition in the Fossil- 

 Plant Gallery at the British Museum of Natural History, South Kensington. They were 

 presented to that establishment by the engineer, Mr. Francis Brady, together with portions of 

 the solid cores. The fossil plants in question prove that the Dover coal at present struck is on 

 the horizon of the upper part of the Middle Coal Measures, so that there is every probability of 

 the occurrence of other productive seams lower down. The specimens were obtained from two 

 horizons — namely 1,262 feet and 2,234 f^^' from the surface of the ground. ' 



2 The fullest information about the borings at Culford and Ware will be found in a paper_ by 

 Messrs. Whitaker and Jukes-Browne, published in the " Quarterly Journal of the Geological 

 Society," vol. 1., pp. 488-"5i4 (August, 1894), "On Deep Borings at Culford and Wingfield, with 

 Notes on those at Ware and Cheshunt." 



