96 PROF. T. ErPERT JONES — ON COAX. 



Calais, and beneath the valley of the Thames to Bristol, the Forest 

 of Dean, and South Wales, south of the Old Eed area, towards 

 Ireland. On the eastern side of Hereford, and along the eastern 

 border of the old rocks of Wales, the range of the coal-growth is 

 shown by the coals appearing here and there along the Severn and 

 the Dee ; and doubtless it widened out considerably eastward 

 across what is now England. Continuing northward, it occupied 

 Northumbria, and stretched westward locally between the old 

 Cumbrian land and the Southern Islands ; passing around the east 

 end of the latter, it was strong across what is now Central Scotland, 

 with indications in North Ireland. Thus the coal-growth invested 

 the southern and western edges of Godwin- Austen's '' internal sea" 

 abovementioned, and extended westward by two outlets : one at 

 its south-west comer, by South Wales, and the other on the 

 north-west, by Central Scotland, each extending into the Irish area, 

 and thus roughly surrounding the several older Palaeozoic lands of 

 Wales, Ireland, Cumbria, and South Scotland. 



In Professor Ramsay's account of the denuded remnants of the 

 Welsh coal-fields, * the stretch of coal-growth along the border of 

 the old Cambrian land is clearly indicated in his statement, that — 

 " One denuded edge of these accumulations now forms part of 

 the counties of Pembroke, Caermarthen, Glamorgan, and Monmouth, 

 and is elsewhere exhibited in the Forest of Dean, the narrow strips 

 of coal-measures north of May Hill in Gloucestershire, the Clee 

 Hills (outliers of the Forest of Wyre and Coalbrookdale), the coal- 

 fields south and west of Shrewsbury, and that of Oswestry, 

 Wrexham, and Mold. All these are but fragments of one 

 great original coal-field, once mantling round North Wales 

 and the older rocks west of the Severn and north of the Bristol 

 Channel." 



Both north and south, however, of the old Cumbrian area are a 

 few seemingly isolated patches of coal ; but the Whitehaven field 

 is really the western portion of the North-of -England coal-growth ; 

 the coal of Angiesea belongs to the westward extension of the 

 Lancashire coal-field ; and that of Ingieton is a remnant of the 

 northern part of the latter towards the margin of the old Cumbrian 

 land. 



(2) Sir Henry De la Beche, in 1846,f noted that a great sheet of 

 palaeozoic rocks, including the Coal-measures, extending from 

 Belgium to Central England, had been rolled about, undulated, 

 crumpled, and then partially worn away before the New Bed Sand- 

 stone and other Mesozoic strata were laid down upon them ; and 

 that these, in their turn, had been denuded so as to expose here and 

 there portions of the underlying Coal-measures, though near-by a 

 ridge of profitless Mountain Limestone or other older rock might 

 come to the surface. 



In 1856, Mr. Godwin-Austen, following up his reasoning about 

 the areas of coal-growth (see above, page 95), explained that the 



* 'Mem. Geol. Snrv.,' vol. i, 1846, p. 314. 

 t lb., pp. 213-214. 



