20 
Mr Wethered suggested borings in the Thames Valley, 
also south of the Mendips, and it would not surprise him if 
some day the smoke of collieries were seen as far as the 
classic city of Oxford and east of the Cotteswolds. 
Dealing next with the Severn Valley, by means of a 
geological map, he pointed out that, if we look from the outcrop 
of the Forest of Dean coalfield towards Worcester, we see a 
narrow strip of country covered by red rocks of Trias age, 
which latter disappear eastward beneath the Jurassic rocks. - 
This narrow strip soon widens out, and then we have black 
patches of coal measures, among which were the coalfields of 
South Staffordshire, Leicestershire, Warwickshire, and those 
known as the Severn Valley coalfields. The question he wished 
to ask was, is there a coalfield between the outcrop of the 
Forest of Dean coalfield and that of South Staffordshire ? 
There are, as is well known, signs of coal at Newent, and still 
further up the Severn Valley (just north of the Abberley Hills), 
the coalfield of the Forest of Wyre. The inference to be drawn 
from these facts seems to point to a barrier in the Severn 
Valley, close to which, on either side, the coalfields thin out. 
Thus if we compared the thickness of the Carboniferous strata 
in the Bristol coalfield with the same rocks in the Forest of 
Dean we should discover a considerable decrease in the latter 
area. If we passed to the coalfield of South Staffordshire and 
to that of the Forest of Wyre, we should find the lower divisions 
of the Carboniferous rocks absent. The latter coalfield is the 
one nearest to the Forest of Dean, and it is significant that its 
seams of coal are of inferior quality. What he had stated was 
not conclusive proof that there may not be coal in the Severn 
Valley ; still the facts he had mentioned were against the 
supposition that coal-getting there would be a sound com- 
mercial undertaking. There would be greater probability of 
finding coal in South Warwickshire, a little north of Stratford- 
on-Avon, but the question of depth was a speculative one on 
account of the great development of the Permian and Trias 
rocks northward. Doubtless the rocks thinned out southward, 
but what would be the thickness in South Warwickshire he 
could not say. 
