40 



out or come to the surface, the Lower Coal Measures dip to the south with great 

 regularity at an angle of four or five degrees. From the fact of their cropping 

 out here, and their being workable with comparative economy, and also from 

 their association with the iron ores, this district has become famous for its 

 extensive ironworks, such as Blaenafon, Nantyglo, Blaina, Abersychan, Ebbvf 

 Vale, Khymney, Dowlais, Cyfarthfa, Aberdare, and so on, all of which places 

 depended on the close vicinity of Coal, Iron-ore, and Limestone. But as time has 

 passed, circumstances have changed, and the railway system, which then was 

 unknown, has revolutionised the iron trade, as it has other things. The Welsh 

 Clayband or Argillaceous ore, upon wliich all the works depended, is, in many 

 places, nearly worked out, and the supply is, instead, kept up by foreign ores, 

 such as the Hajmatite from Cumberland, Oolitic ore from Northampton, Magnetic 

 ore from Elba, Spathose ore from Somersetshire, &c. ; the great demand enabhug 

 the expensive item of carriage to be brought down to a price that enables 

 foreign ore to compete with native ore. 



The Lower Coal Measures then are easily accessible at the North Crop, 

 but they gradually become deeper and more difficult to get at, and, at a distance 

 of six or seven miles, are practically inaccessible to the coal-owner from their 

 great depth. Perhaps when our experience in deep mining is improved, we 

 shall find means to work coal seams at a depth of 3,000 or 4,000 feet, but up 

 to this time the difficulties of obtaining respirable air and ventilation are insuper- 

 able. I believe myself that the coal-cutting machine will be one of the principal 

 agents in bringing about this state of things, but at present it seems as if the 

 age was not ripe for it ; for the coal-masters, though confessing its ingenuity 

 and powers, seem shy of introducing it. I have no doubt but that the feeling of 

 the colliers will be generally against it, and in these days we have suflBcient 

 storms in the mine atmosphere without rushing into others. Nevertheless, the 

 day will come, most assuredly, when machinery will compel the collier to acknow- 

 ledge a higher power than himself. Fortunately for the owners of mineral 

 property about the centre of the basin, we find some of the efi'ects of the 

 great westerly force, in the shape of a large saddle, or anticlinal, that runs in 

 the long axis of the Coalfield from Newbridge in Monmouthshire to the Bhondda 

 Valley in Carmarthenshire. Its course underground is very fairly marked above 

 ground by a corresponding depression in the hills, of which the Great Western 

 Company have taken advantage to run their railway from Pontypool to Quaker's 

 Yard. The practical value of this anticlinal is to render accessible the deep 

 measure coals that would otherwise be too far down to be worked, and conse- 

 quently at the Abercarn Collieries, a little to the South of the Newbridge 

 anticlinal, and at the Maesteg Works in Glamorganshire, the effects of it are 

 seen. Between this anticlinal on the South crop is another "i-oU" or saddle, 

 of much smaller dimensions. The South crop itself so far differs in its charac- 

 teristics from the North crop that the strata are at an extraordinarily steep 

 angle, from 30 to 40 degrees, as if they had been set up on edge. 



