86 



many years. The strata comprised in this series yield very little 

 water, the Conglomerate at the base of the New Eed Sandstone 

 serving as a nearly water-tight covering, through which only a 

 very moderate quantity of water ever passes. The only feeder 

 worth naming occurs in a thick bed of Sandstone overlying the 

 Middle Vein ; but the water produced here and elsewhere in the 

 series is entirely free from Salt, of which the writer has never 

 discovered any trace. 



The Middle Pit was originally sunk to the lowest seam of the 

 Radstock group, which was here met with at a depth of 875 feet, 

 and beneath which there lay an unknown country. The sinking 

 operations carried on under the direction of the ^vriter began at 

 that point on the 8th of May, 1884, and having been carried down 

 through the second or Farrington group of the Somersetshire Coal 

 Measures, reached a depth of 1791 feet from the surface on the 

 25th of January last ; the ground below this point having since 

 been proved by a boring to a total depth of 1846 feet. It is not 

 the object of the present paper to describe the geological features 

 met with in this exploration, nor to record in any detail the strata 

 passed through ; but it may be noted that the thickness of barren 

 ground, intervening between the lowest vein of the Radstock 

 series and the first workable vein of the Farrington group, was 

 here found to be 628 feet, and that it contained the well known 

 beds of Red Shale which invariably lie between the two groups. 



It may also be stated in passing, that the result of this sinking 

 has entirely falsified the expectations of some who had turned their 

 attention to the subject. It had long been held in certain quarters 

 that wherever the Farrington veins have been worked beneath 

 the Radstock series, the former have been thin and inferior ; and 

 that the Farrington veins are only valuable in the margin outside 

 the outcrop of the Radstock group. The writer could never see 

 any good ground for this contention, believing that the range and 

 thickness of the seams composing the Farrington group could 

 not be aifected by strata by which they were not overlaid for 



